Author Description

This catalogue complements Christiane Baumgartner's first major museum exhibition in the U.S. and offers an in-depth introduction to the artist's work at mid-career. Baumgartner is best known for monumental woodcuts, handcarved prints that literally and conceptually expand the traditional boundaries of the medium beyond expectation. Leipzig-based artist Christiane Baumgartner (b. 1967) works at the intersection of old and new media to expand the conceptual and technical capacities of printmaking. Sourcing images from cinema and TV or from her own photographs and videos, she hand-carves woodcuts that defy convention and expectation. Often monumental in scale or undertaken in large series, the work is about speed and transmission, about human sight and its elusive capture, about cultural memory and modes of representation. Essays contextualise the work in relation to German printmaking and the Leipzig school; an interview with the artist surveys her praxis at mid-career. Exhibition: Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, USA (21.9. - 16.12.2018).