All Color

Tomma Abts, Darren Almond, Anne Appleby, John Baldessari, John Chiara, Mary Heilmann, Al Held, Jacqueline Humphries, Per Kirkeby, Robert Kushner, Bertrand Lavier, Robert Mangold, Tom Marioni, Matt Mullican, Odili Donald Odita, Chris Ofili, Gay Outlaw, Pat Steir, Richard Tuttle, Charline von Heyl, Catherine Wagner, John Zurier

Crown Point Press presents All Color, an exhibition featuring a group of artists whose etchings explore the expressive potential of color. In this exhibition, color serves not just as an aesthetic choice but as an integral aspect used to amplify the imagery of each print. The artists employ vibrant, rich tones to create dynamic compositions through the techniques of aquatint, spit bite, and sugar lift. The works featured in All Color demonstrate the universal impact color can have in etching.

The interplay between color and geometry is fundamental to Odili Donald Odita's work. Deep, saturated tones fill each image, interrupted only by stark white lines that zig-zag across the composition. The artist's use of color is intentional and the bold hues are unique: Odita mixes his own color palettes, ensuring no color is replicated. In a 2016 interview for Studio International, Odita said that for him, color is a "physical force" that "has an effect on the body and mind together." Deep, with its rich tones and dynamic lines, creates a powerful effect reminiscent of a collection of faceted gemstones.

Simple yet striking, John Baldessari's Hand on Chin (with Entwined Hands) juxtaposes colorful images of a chin and hands. The print is fragmented – each bodiless part is clearly demarcated by its respective color – making form and gesture the emphasis of the work. Hand on Chin (with Entwined Hands) defies traditional portraiture by shifting the focus from the whole to the relationship between the parts, reflecting Baldessari's conceptual approach to art. For Baldessari, color functions as a tool to delineate this fragmentation, highlighting each hand and the chin in their own distinct, colorful light. "Life's got to be more than deciding what color goes next to another color," the artist once said.

Color is inherently representational in Matt Mullican's Represent The Work, Logo. In his work, the colors Mullican chooses to use refer to "The Five Worlds" a classification system he invented whose five categories correspond to various levels of perception. Colors represent each of the Worlds: yellow signifies art, science, and culture; blue represents everyday life; green stands for the material world, red the subjective; and black symbolizes language. These five colors make up the concentric circles in Represent The Work, Logo and transcend conventional symbolism, prompting an investigation into the interconnectedness of different realms of human experience.

The works presented in All Color demonstrate how artists use color not merely as an embellishment but as an essential artistic element to convey meaning, emotion, and complex ideas. Each artist in this exhibition pushes the boundaries of color in unique ways, from commanding, geometric compositions to conceptual and philosophical abstractions.