The artist Christopher Wool is never through with a form just because he’s used it before. Rather, in a perpetual cycle of self-appropriation, he runs the visual elements he creates through numerous incarnations, constantly experimenting with shifts in scale and medium.
A group of six monotypes on photogravure by the artist, recently acquired by the Museum’s Department of Drawings and Prints and currently on view in the Museum’s main lobby, exemplify this working method. These multilayered works were made in 2014, but the form that underlies them comes from paint splashes on paper Wool made for a body of work from a decade earlier called Untitled (2004 Drawings of Beer on the Wall). Subsequently, the form appeared in two portfolios of six lithographs each—Portraits (b/w) and Portraits (red)—both from 2014 and both also recently acquired by MoMA. The monotypes now on view, which represent six from a larger group of 40, are the latest iteration of the form.
Installation view of Inbox: Christopher Wool, The Museum of Modern Art, January 7–February 16, 2015. Christopher Wool. Untitled. 2014. Monotypes over photogravure. Printer: Universal Limited Art Editions, Bay Shore, New York. Edition: Unique. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Marlene Hess and James D. Zirin, Donald B. Marron, Mary M. and Sash A. Spencer, Alice and Tom Tisch, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, and James Keith Brown and Eric Diefenbach, 2014. All works © Christopher Wool
In these complex works, the splatter form appears in red or black photogravure at the base of the composition. The unique impressions on top—in the alternate color—were made by inking corrugated cardboard and running it through a press, often multiple times. This process lends a ridged texture to the works, one that resembles the output of a printer running low on ink, though the effect is achieved here through a more old fashioned, and unique, kind of printing.
Left: Untitled; right: Untitled. Both by Christopher Wool. 2014. Monotype over photogravure. Printer: Universal Limited Art Editions, Bay Shore, New York. Edition: Unique. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Marlene Hess and James D. Zirin, Donald B. Marron, Mary M. and Sash A. Spencer, Alice and Tom Tisch, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, and James Keith Brown and Eric Diefenbach, 2014. Both works © Christopher Wool
Indeed, much of the meaning of Wool’s work in general, and these works specifically, can be found in the tension between the unique, spontaneous gesture and the deliberate, mediated multiple. Wool’s original splash evokes action painting, but the result is reiterated across different mediums and scales until it becomes more mechanized than expressive. Until, with these hybrid works, he restores singularity by adding a monotype layer to the underlying photogravure.
Wool is not just playing formal games here; rather, these moves constitute an investigation into the relevance of singularity in an era of mechanical reproduction. At once multiple and unique, these works suggest that there is no definitive resolution, an appropriate attitude for an artist who once described himself as “more interested in questions than answers.”
[Editor’s note: On June 2, 2015, this post was altered from its original version to reflect updated information.]