Vija Celmins
VIJA CELMINS "SPIDER WEB" 2009
Vija Celmins (b. 1938) is one of the most accomplished and revered living American artists. Born in Riga, Latvia, her dynamic oeuvre resists merging with any art-historical "ism" or school. Establishing her practice in the 1960s in Los Angeles, Celmins was one of few women who were recognized in the LA art scene during that time. While she is sometimes associated with LA artists, she has been based in New York City for several decades.
Commissioned as part of Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary celebration, "Spider Web" is a great example of Celmins' affinity for exploring and depicting her favourite natural motifs. In addition to webs, her signature subjects include glistening oceans, windswept deserts, dense clouds, lunar landscapes, and skies full of stars always realized in a nuanced, greyscale palette.Â
Believing that images can translate emotional states, Celmins pursues nature-imspired imagery as a way of understanding the human consciousness.Â
The web in this image is delicate and just out of focus, contributing to an ephemerality that echoes the fragility of the subject. The darkness pulsates behind each thread, a building gust threatening to dissolve the web at any moment. While a softness radiates from the greyscale image, the palpable translucency emits both a fragility and a sense of resilience in it's technicality and care.
Celmins' serial exploration of subjects allows her to really understand their distinct characteristics, and deepen her exploration of the web-like construction of the universe. She explains: "Maybe I identify with the spider. I'm the kind of person who works on something forever, and then works on the same image again the next day."
Celmins recently received an award from the International Print Center in New York for her outstanding artistic contribution to the field. Retrospectives of her work have traveled to the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Whitney, the SFMOMA, and The MCA in Los Angeles. Her works are in the permanent collections of the MET, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney in New York, along with the Tate and with several other museums globally.
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"Spider Web"
USA, 2009
Serigraph on wove paper
Signed, numbered, and dated by the artist
Printers Proof 2/10 (Outside the edition of 117)
14.5”H 13"W (work)Â
21.75”H 23”W (framed)Â
Very good condition
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