Analia Saban "Folds and Faults" @ Sprueth Magers

Rise/Fall. 

PLEATED INK, STAIRCASE WITH LANDING, 2017

LASER-SCULPTED PAPER ON INK ON WOOD PANEL

162,6 X 121,9 X 5,4 CM

DRAPED CONCRETE (26.25 SQ FT), 2016

FOUR CONCRETE SLABS ON WOODEN SAWHORSE

104,8 X 487,7 X 42,9 CM

Weighted issues over a barrier. X4. (Signs of labor/construction)

A hard body slumped over a rigid support.

THREADBARE (16 STEPS), 2017

PIGMENTED INK PRINT ON ACRYLIC PAINT

16 WORKS: 153,7 X 106 CM EACH

Parts and wholes disintegrate into more frayed, parts. Frayed so... 

WOVEN SOLID AS WARP, HORIZONTAL (GRAY) #1, 2017

ACRYLIC PAINT WOVEN THROUGH LINEN CANVAS ON PANEL

202,6 X 106 X 6,4 CM

That plasticy quality of paint...unnatural. Some raise a desire to touch for verification. The plasticity...

Every time I see Saban's work, I think back to the first set of paintings that I saw at Cottage Home in 2009/2010. They were so oddly plastic. See image below.

I also think about how she introduced herself to me while viewing Doug Aitken at Regen Projects on Almont in 2009; I appreciated her direct, forward approach. Not your typical reserved boundary-observing approach even within close proximity/shared space. But why not?

After two separate past events, I return to the works in this exhibition and wonder how they connect with those earlier exchanges, particularly the paintings so odd in their marks and color. And now, I am starting to think that these Folds and Faults works, largely eschewing color save a reserved language of blacks, whites, earth tones, grays, mid tones (stylish color tones all), are easily discerned in their dialectical position and shift only slightly in value.  Thus, a material investigation of painted surface focuses more on physical process, containment, and contact.  Physical alteration seems more important than surface effect. Material investigation of delicate subjects seem to be key, in which case one can't help but reflect onto the maker as well, and all the dualisms that accompany ones sense of being.  So, maybe, despite hanging on a wall, that these are not to be thought about in terms of paint, pigment, certainly not a variety of color.  So, like Malevich perhaps as the first thought in my head, these are works to be thought about in space, like folded concrete, for example, concrete objects in an otherwise abstract condition, the present viewing space as one possibility.   

I could easily see representations of Folds and Faults as symbols for curvilinear (gradual, smooth change) and rectilinear (abrupt, hard change) and therefore by extension traditional female/male interactions and distinctions, at least visually, art-historically.  Less concerned with gender as gender obviously, it's just another example of how these works function in their dualist approach.  That said, it's worth noting that such an image as bathroom shower does suggest an intimate, interior, domestic space and also its absence. Again, another set of terms that fold and unfold through one another while breaking, or at the very least, not connecting. The break for me, as a digression, is thinking about the POV of a shower in such films as Hitchcock's, Psycho, for example.  Less clear any kind of narrative obviously, it does suggest a view onto a vulnerable place of event. It's the impending moment and anticipation, just as the anxiety of things continuously rumbling beneath the surface and occasionally emerging cataclysmically. Again, surface and substance... These paintings so static, though. Before or after the event...

PLEATED INK, BATHTUB WITH SHOWER CURTAIN, 2017

LASER-SCULPTED PAPER ON INK ON WOOD PANEL

172,7 X 137,2 X 5,4 CM

Strange pictorial. Somewhere between literal and poetic as it pertains to the subject of architectural space. 

PLEATED INK, WINDOW WITH BLINDS, 2017

LASER-SCULPTED PAPER ON INK ON WOOD PANEL

152,4 X 101,6 X 5,2 CM

Dark transmission whether I be looking outward or inward, presumably outward. 

Certainly opaque as they court door/window dialogue with works on walls, the way viewers assess space looking straight-forward while standing, but possibly sitting. Rugs? Jute? Again, the physicality of paint, surface, threshold....

FOLDED CONCRETE (ACCORDION FOLD), 2017

CONCRETE ON WALNUT PALLET

OVERALL DIMENSIONS: 33 X 127 X 94 CM

WOVEN COLLAPSIBLE GATE, EXPANDED (BLACK), 2017

ACRYLIC PAINT WOVEN THROUGH LINEN CANVAS ON PANEL

92,1 X 101,8 X 4,4 CM

Fabric. Holding things together as they want to pull apart.  

If trompe loeil confusion, then what? Photo? Print? Actual material? The collapse of material understanding... Virtual image (abstract illusion) or concrete? Pun both intended and not. A continual oscillation between the general and the specific.... Like the opening and closing of a gate....

Open/Closed. Barrier representations.  Yet another dualism...

Threadbare (16 Steps), 2017

Pigmented ink print on acrylic paint

A tendency toward entropy. Most of the works represent a move in only one direction. Incremental change in "steps". cf. titles and images. Therefore, the ones that do not represent dissolution/fragmenation but actually depict object/space further complicate any clean reading of the work. cf. Spaces that humans occupy but are not present. An outlook, and inlook, or...? Just as the exhibition itself becomes complicit, especially when and where a viewer shares common ground with work, the floor sculptures.

There is a seduction in seeing things doing what they are not supposed to do, a rebellion and therefore freedom from expectation.  So, it makes sense that we continue to question our power and control between nature (basic, organic materials and their representations) and built elements from said environment. While the surface holds intrigue, we know the interior/substance is unstable at best.  And it is this interaction between inside/out that provides such curiosity even at times when it seems that all systems are solved by availability of information and human status.