Santa Fe, NM—Zane Bennett presents Stitched Ink, an exhibition of fine art prints by legends such as Christo, Judy Chicago, Louise Nevelson, and Donald Sultan. Curator Kylee Aragon, who served as the interim gallery director of Albuquerque’s nonprofit lithography center Tamarind Institute before joining Zane Bennett’s staff, selected works on paper that alchemically reflect the dynamism of textiles. Stitched Ink opens Friday, January 25 from 5 to 7 pm, coinciding with the reception for form & concept’s fiber art show Nika Feldman: Spirits in the Material World. The exhibition is Zane Bennett’s first formal, in-gallery display since 2015, and launches a curatorial program of seasonal exhibitions.
“Zane Bennett is back,” says Sandy Zane. “Although it never really went away.” Zane is the owner of Zane Bennett Contemporary Art and form & concept, sister galleries that occupy an 11,000-square-foot space in the Santa Fe Railyard Arts District. She moved Zane Bennett to a fully online model in 2016, after more than a decade as a brick-and-mortar gallery. “The change expanded our international collector base, and it also opened our physical walls for a new gallery called form & concept,” says Zane. The two enterprises have shared offices since then, but they’ll officially split exhibition space for the first time this January. Aragon, who joined the Zane Bennett staff late last year after leaving her position as interim gallery director of Tamarind Institute, leads the new curatorial program.
“We all know what paper feels like, but to make paper look like something else is a hard thing to do,” Aragon says. “When you’re making a print inspired by a textile, how do you create that sense of dimensionality and flowing movement on a two-dimensional surface?” Often, the key to success for such a wildly creative but highly technical endeavor is collaboration. Aragon highlights the relationship between artists and printers in wall text for Stitched Ink. “I’ve seen how they work together, and how they push one another,” she says. “Printmaking is, in itself, so difficult. To be problem-solving together and getting this flowing, fibrous result is so fascinating to me.”
In Stitched Ink, lithographs by Louise Nevelson capture the delicate patterns and textures of lace, Christo wraps elements of his mixed-media lithographs, and Judy Chicago mimics the quilted aesthetic of her famous installation The Dinner Party in a serigraph. Lesley Dill collages and stitches atop a lithograph, and artist duo Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh collaborate from afar on lithographs with hand-sewn elements. “There’s this constant push as a printmaker to make a print that isn’t like your last print,” says Aragon. “You want it to evolve every single time, because you’re not dealing with paint or a sculptural medium that’s more textural.”
