Zarina, Stars (from Home is a Foreign Place, 1999)
I know, I know. One of the most exciting (and potentially tragic) earth-meteorite encounters in living history and I did nothing to keep you informed. In my defense, I was on the go all day, trying to coax just a few more minutes out that sorry excuse for a battery that powers my iPhone. I just didn’t have the time, mental space, or energy (phone energy) to connect you to videos and analysis. On the other hand, everyone else seems to have had plenty to say about it, so I doubt you missed my commentary.
While I was running around this weekend, supposedly ignoring science, I stopped in at the Guggenheim with a friend. We went for the Gutai exhibition, but I was more taken with the Zarina retrospective. Not only are her prints beautiful and striking as objects, she works on some of my favorite themes—location, memory, space, identity, architecture, environment, mobility, nation. Her personal geography coincided with mine in many places and I was captivated by her ability to pin a spatial memory to paper with ink. And you can see from the image above that her locative work isn’t just about house or city or continent, it’s about the sky and the universe as well.
Zarina, Santa Cruz, 1996
Zarina: Paper Like Skin is on view at the Guggenheim (New York) through April 21, after which time it moves to the Art Institute of Chicago. In the meantime, you can view some of her work in the online gallery at Luhring Augustine.
