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Lot Essay
Zarina’s interest in paper pulp arose during a visit to the town of Sanganer, Rajasthan, in the late 1960s where the artist observed locals make their well-know handmade paper. Realizing the potential of paper, Zarina went on to study papermaking when she moved to New York a few years later. Influenced by the work of conceptual artists like Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein and Jean Arp as well as the minimal sculptures of Richard Serra, in works like the present lot, Zarina distills complex experiences and intellectual ideas to produce clean, uncomplicated images.
Created using a pulp of Sanganer paper and mineral particles in a deep relief mold the artist crafted from urban detritus she found on the streets outside her studio in New York, the silvery-grey surface of this work, titled Corner, with its prominent niche, addresses the tenuous nature of home as a 'space to hide', a subject resolutely embedded in Zarina’s practice at the time (see lot 635). Combining the artist’s interest in architecture and geometry with her interrogation of place and identity, we can read this monochromatic work “[…] as a re-configuring of the flat patterns of earlier prints into sculptural forms. What is interesting about the process is that it was accomplished altogether by hand without the use of tools or a printing press [...] Zarina as a sculptor has invented a process whereby she can cast, color and surface her materials, in one breath” (R. Kimbril, ‘A Personal Language of Geometry and Architecture’, Paper Houses, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 4, 5).
Created using a pulp of Sanganer paper and mineral particles in a deep relief mold the artist crafted from urban detritus she found on the streets outside her studio in New York, the silvery-grey surface of this work, titled Corner, with its prominent niche, addresses the tenuous nature of home as a 'space to hide', a subject resolutely embedded in Zarina’s practice at the time (see lot 635). Combining the artist’s interest in architecture and geometry with her interrogation of place and identity, we can read this monochromatic work “[…] as a re-configuring of the flat patterns of earlier prints into sculptural forms. What is interesting about the process is that it was accomplished altogether by hand without the use of tools or a printing press [...] Zarina as a sculptor has invented a process whereby she can cast, color and surface her materials, in one breath” (R. Kimbril, ‘A Personal Language of Geometry and Architecture’, Paper Houses, New Delhi, 2007, pp. 4, 5).