JUDY PFAFF | New + Recent Work

“The work initially came out of problem solving. I struggled with how to make an object. It’s much easier for me to paint the wall or drag something into the space. I find it very difficult to make just one thing, because as soon as I do, I think it would be better with another thing. I was put off by how limited the language of sculpture was, and how it was owned not just by abstraction and conceptual art, but it seemed limited by ‘truth to materials,’ and should be singular, monochromatic, opaque, and non-narrative. I'm involved in making as compact visual structures as I can handle; weaving many different languages in and out; two-dimensional, three-dimensional, architectural, metaphorical, allegorical, literal, and abstract. I want a density in the work to have things going on in layers. I used to think that most art is kind of stingy. There is a demand in much of art to read the text panel to understand what you are experiencing. Generosity and openness are important to me, so that the viewer is not intimidated, threatened, or belittled. There’s no coming to school and feeling like you didn’t get the homework done. You can enjoy it, even if you don’t know everything about it.”

- Judy Pfaff

Robischon Gallery is pleased to present Judy Pfaff who has been internationally renowned for over forty years and continues to work with her boundless, personal lexicon of organic, decorative, and geometric variations in sculpture, drawing and print works. Most readily recognized as a major artist in the field of Installation Art, Pfaff brings her vision into form through works in all media with equal vigor and ground-breaking insight.

Embodying the exhilarating and expansive creative spirit that originated site-specific Installation Art, Pfaff’s smaller, signature sculptures are astonishing in their dimensional wonder with melted plastic, painted insulation foam, shellacked Chinese paper lanterns, twirling light elements, and more, and incorporating both traditional and unconventional materials presented with a unique vision of abstraction in new contexts. In the 1970s, when other artists were creating austere Minimalist work, Pfaff, along with like-minded artists Gordon Matta-Clark, Lynda Benglis, and Richard Tuttle, made gutsy vibrant and complex installations teeming with color and life. Inspired by all manner of objects and materials, Pfaff’s ongoing contribution to contemporary art and her ceaseless creative imperative defines her as a singular artistic force – ever influential and relentlessly pushing the boundaries.

Pfaff’s new large-scale, intricately layered prints are simultaneously lush and delicate; audacious and welcoming. The artist inventively creates with multiple printmaking techniques such as intaglio, woodcut, and archival inkjet with applications of shellac on Kozo in order to render the paper translucent or utilizes poured resin and glitter to enliven tarlatan fabric. Pfaff’s series sometimes develop from her lifelong travel adventures, including trips to China, Japan and India which inspired some of the featured works on view. The twenty-eight separate plate boba print with its soft hues shows layered reference to Indian Kantha quilts and their patterned floral elements, Koi, and textiles. The artist’s aptly named boba offers poured sparking resin elements that refer to the popular Taiwanese bubble tea with tapioca pearls. Pfaff’s cross-discipline references are well-suited to her language as each piece exists within a sophisticated structure and is deeply reliant on the artist’s singular interpretation of abstraction. The translucent layers in yasai o tabete kudasai (eat your vegetables, please) and boba are part of the artist’s ongoing oeuvre which offer a stratified exposition of time and culture as experienced by this undaunted and intuitive artist.

As part of the Denver Art Museum’s “Material World” exhibition in 2013-2015, the impressive De las Flores sculptural “drawing” is a tour de force with layers of artificial and dried floral elements, folded and printed paper matter, among other objects, where both 2-D and 3D elements contained within a frame allows the artist to consider the “objectness” of a drawing. Pfaff’s sculptures and drawings coupled with her prints deftly convey the artist’s mastery of materiality and exemplify her indominable risk-taking. From massive installations to unexpected sculptural forms to radical printmaking, the breadth of Judy Pfaff’s complex and alive visual language continues to inspire each viewer and influence each new generation of artists.

London-born artist Judy Pfaff received an M.F.A. from Yale University, a B.F.A. from Washington University, St. Louis, and an honorary Doctorate from Pratt Institute. She has been the recipient of some of the highest honors in her field including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship, an X-Grant from the MacArthur Foundation, two National Endowment for the Art Grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, International Sculpture Center Lifetime Achievement Award, Anonymous Was A Woman Award, National Academy Award for Excellence in Sculpture, a Hirshorn New York Gala Honoree, Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation Fellowship, Nancy Graves Foundation Grant, the Dean’s Medal from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, Southern Graphics Council International Conference Lifetime Achievement Award, and is a member of the American Academy of Art and Letters, NY. Pfaff was invited into the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial in 1975. In 1998, she was selected as the US representative to the Bienal de São Paulo. Her work is included in prestigious public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, The National Academy of Design, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Whitney Museum of American Art, Albright-Knox Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Denver Art Museum, High Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Art, Elvehjem Museum, Madison, WI, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Sun Hwa Art and Culture Foundation, Seoul, Korea, and the Sammlung Ludwig, in Aachen, Germany, among many others. Pfaff has exhibited extensively in both the U.S. and abroad including solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; the P.S. 1 Museum, Long Island City, NY; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; among many others.