Cristea Roberts Gallery

Christiane Baumgartner</a>: Sunken Treasure (30 January - 8 March 2025), the artist's fifth solo exhibition with the gallery, which presents a new body of work de- veloped by the artist over the last two years. Large-scale woodcuts of landscapes and seascapes are paired with ethereal views of sunsets and horizons as well as previously unseen oil drawings.</p><p>Although these works may first appear as peaceful meditations on the natural world, they mark the tensions between nature and human conflict.</p><p>The artist began this body of work in 2022 when she first heard news of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. At the outset of her career Baumgartner's woodcuts were informed by her experience of growing up in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall; over thirty years later, the artist has described the same feeling of paral- ysis experienced in her youth in Cold War Germany.</p><p>The exhibition opens with three large-scale woodcuts that en- capsulate a world that is becoming "black and white...vague and fragile." Melancholia, 2022, Kiss, 2024, and Elysium, 2023, are part of a series termed 'the outer world' and represent Baumgartner's attempt to control or preserve moments in time when the contem- porary political climate is increasingly volatile.</p><p>For this series Baumgartner also considered the role of the sky and celestial phenomena in medieval times, to forewarn of events yet to come. These imposing works are based on Baumgartner's own photography of the Baltic Sea, of sunsets that pierce through heavy and ominous clouds. Whilst her pictures revere nature, Baumgartner's natural world is dystopian and uncanny.</p><p>The artist's meticulously incised lines, when viewed from a dis- tance, clearly depict the interplay of light over water, however when moving closer to the picture, we find that the image is abstracted by the intensity of her mark-making. In In Der Region von Eis, 2022, Baumgartner portrays what seems to be a fading sun from a vague and obscure vantage point, a potential "underworld" or supernat- ural realm. Carved line by line into woodblock with a sharp knife in her studio, Baumgartner creates a unique pictorial space, where the viewer becomes conscious of both the emerging light as well as the sheer physical effort undertaken by the artist to inscribe the wood.</p><p>Baumgartner also presents a new series of coloured woodcuts that share their title with the exhibition. The Sunken Treasure prints form part of Baumgartner's 'inner world' and are also intended to present a view from below. The artist, who has often critiqued material culture and human consumption in her practice, names the variants in this series after precious stones.</p><p><br></p>" />

Dieter Roth</a> formed the basis for one of the artist’s best-known works, Six Piccadillies, 1969-70, consisting of six double sided prints of the famous landmark. A print of a toaster by <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/Richard-Hamilton/004CB5BE9673B6E3">Richard Hamilton</a> made in 1967, one of the artist’s first works to combine different printing techniques, depicts a Braun home appliance with accompanying text adapted from Braun advertising brochures.</p><p>For other artists everyday ephemera and materials became elements of the work itself, such as small wooden and metal items, stapled or attached by string by <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/Joe-Tilson/6D972CE5090CA874">Joe Tilson</a> to his prints or a work by Briget Riley from her Fragments series, featuring the first screenprints ever made on plexi-glass in 1965.</p><p>Although dissolving the distinction between everyday items and what was deemed a work of fine art, many of the artists on show remained rooted in a European tradition. <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/Tess-Jaray/5C8421533D9E3C14">Tess Jaray</a> found inspiration in the forms and shapes of Italian Renaissance architecture, whereas <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/Tom-Wesselmann/9F26C3A0CF4D2579">Tom Wesselmann</a> and <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/Patrick-Caulfield/C68AB510694F4326">Patrick Caulfield</a>’s pared back depictions of furnishings, interiors and still life drew directly from artists such as Léger, Cezanne, Matisse, Braque and Picasso.</p><p>The emergence of this egalitarian approach in the 60s is typified by 7 Objects in a Box, the first ever edition of multiples produced in 1966. Using a wide range of materials, some newly invented, the work embodies an alternative and sometimes irreverent approach to making multiples. 7 Objects in a Box, a combination of each artist’s distinctive style, includes a cast of a baked potato by <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/Claes-Oldenburg/306B144AAB24004F">Claes Oldenburg</a>, a printed still from a <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/Andy-Warhol/85A84FA828A34B78">film by Andy Warhol</a>, and a baked enamel sunrise by <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/Roy-Lichtenstein/1D75C7E9A1F23527">Roy Lichtenstein</a>, together with contributions from <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/Jim-Dine/BADABF4421E7CB43">Jim Dine</a>, Allan D’Arcangelo, <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Gallery/Cristea-Roberts-Gallery/"/Artist/George-Segal/CF60870AFC185CE1">George Segal</a>, and Tom Wesselmann.</p><p><br></p>" />