Analia Saban

Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl is pleased to present the exhibition Line to Thread to Wire to Cable to Line, fourteen new prints by Analia Saban.

In the two series that comprise this release, titled Circuit Boards and Transcending Grids, we see Saban’s fascination with linework. For the six Circuit Boards, Saban integrates computer-designed lines, more solid in appearance, with linework created with a handheld electric rotatory tool called a Dremel. It brings to the viewer what appears to be a vibrant switchboard, with energy generated from the Dremel adding movement from the artist’s hand. The two types of lines intersect and interact, and, in instances, jagged lines and friction cohabitate with the more solid, straight lines; all seem to have an infinite, destined journey, as the lines bleed to the edges of the print. These prints are bold and large in scale, full of tension expanding beyond the allotted surface.

Analia Saban’s work is known for her constant pursuit of observation and the dialogue between mediums. Conceptually, the eight Transcending Grids combine printmaking and painting, as the paper merges with linen. The two media seem to easily cohabit hand-in-hand, taking the viewer on a subtle journey. In seven of the eight, linework visibly navigates horizontally and vertically, as if directing the linen threads to follow or go freely and organically. Linen fringes are left to hang, while the grid lines continue, lingering from background to foreground, intermingling between the threads of the linen. In all of them, we find ample space between the square piece of fabric and the border of the paper, but Saban toys with the edges; in an exploration of ideas, Saban has given three of them even larger margins, embossing the linen square within a rigid plate-mark. Within this series, we see the merger of printmaking techniques; linen squares are pressed onto the paper via chine collé, simultaneous with the application of inked colored lines (black, white, red, yellow and blue), printed off a deeply-etched copper plate. Completing the series is Pressed Linen Canvas (Square), a gently-folded piece of linen with the imprint of the top half of the fabric subtly embossed onto the paper. Ethereal in its composition, the linen is in its most natural state, and the ghostly imprint of the fabric pressed into the paper makes us acutely aware of the process of weaving as well as the process of making a fine-art print. Saban is once again laying bare the conceptual nature of her art in this approach to color, texture and mark-making.

Born in 1980 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saban currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She received a BFA in Visual Arts from Loyola University in New Orleans in 2001, followed by an MFA in New Genres at the University of California in Los Angeles in 2005. Saban’s works are represented in the collections of the Hammer Museum at UCLA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Getty Research Institute, in Los Angeles; Blaffer Art Museum and The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio; Mead Art Museum in Amherst; Albright-Knox Art Gallery and Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College in New York; Norton Museum of Art in Florida; The Israel Museum in Jerusalem; National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne; Centre Pompidou in Paris; among many others.