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Exhibition Introduction

Note to the Reader
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Keith
John
Leslie
Self-Portrait

Introduction
Touched Red
Green
Combination
High Green Version 1

Introduction
17 Drawings by Thoreau
Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing)
Changes and Disappearances
Where R=Ryoanji
Fire
The Missing Stone
75 Stones
Eninka
Stones
Where There is Where There

Introduction
Anne Appleby
Pia Fries
Darren Almond
Susan Middleton
Joel Fisher
Brad Brown
Tom Marioni

Introduction
Mamma Andersson
Sol LeWitt
Fred Wilson
Robert Bechtle
Kiki Smith

Introduction
Julie Mehretu
Wayne Thiebaud
Jockum Nordström
Tomma Abts
Nathan Oliveira
Chris Ofili

Introduction
Pat Steir
Laura Owens
Wayne Thiebaud
Amy Sillman

Joel Fisher

Joel Fisher

Sol LeWitt, Color Grids (43, Red Broken / Red Broken)
1975
etching in red
sheet: 20 × 20 (50.8 × 50.8)
Kathan Brown
© 2013 The LeWitt Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Joel Fisher

Sol LeWitt, Color Grids (18, Blue Straight / Blue Straight)
1975
etching in blue
sheet: 20 × 20 (50.8 × 50.8)
Kathan Brown
© 2013 The LeWitt Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Joel Fisher

Robert Kushner, Paulette and Karla (right sheet of triptych)
1980
color sugarlift aquatint, spitbite aquatint, and drypoint
sheet: 23 3⁄4 × 35 5⁄8 (60.3 × 90.5)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Kathan Brown,
1998
Courtesy Robert Kushner
Joel Fisher

Joel Fisher, First Etching
1980
inked and wiped plate printed on two sheets of paper
made from repulped prints by Sol LeWitt and Robert
Kushner
plate: 19 1⁄2 × 9 3⁄4 (49.5 × 24.8)
sheets (joined): 27 × 54 (68.6 × 137.2)
Kathan Brown

Salvaging discarded and defective proofs from Crown Point Press, Fisher repulped them at a local mill to make the paper for First Etching. By chance, he foraged LeWitt’s Color Grids and Kushner’s Paulette and Karla (see slideshow, above, for published impressions of both). Tiny flecks of these recycled proofs can be seen embedded in First Etching’s paper (see banner, above). The faint square at the work’s center is the imprint of an imageless, but lightly inked, printing plate. Fisher referred to First Etching as an invocation, suggesting an appeal for guidance. He found it in LeWitt’s and Kushner’s leftovers and waste.

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Joel Fisher making paper for First Etching, 1980, photograph by Kathan Brown, Courtesy Crown Point Press

Banner image: Detail, Susan Middleton, Requiem, 2008, color photogravure, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Kathan Brown, Courtesy Susan Middleton

Next: Brad Brown

"Yes, No, Maybe: The Art of Making
Decisions," lecture by exhibition curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)

Julie Mehretu, artist, in conversation with curator Judith Brodie, Diamonstein-Spielvogel lecture (audio)

"An Insider's Perspective," lecture by Kathan Brown, founder of Crown Point Press (audio)

Exhibition tour by curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)

Joel Fisher in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Crown Point Press prints in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Press release