Auerbach works with airbrush on embossed paper
Tauba Auerbach made prints with the press twice prior to her visit in 2010. The first two projects, one in 2002 and in 2008, were fairly straightforward. She learned the principles of intaglio printmaking while continuing to explore important themes in her work. Late in 2010, Tauba came to the press armed with rolls of nylon mesh, rubber floor matting, and chicken wire. Her idea was to use these materials as matrices for creating embossments in the soft 100% cotton rag paper that is commonly used for etchings.
We set up the press differently for each material, depending on its physical qualities—the thick matting, the thin mesh, the sharp wire. We used thick, old wool blankets to use as cushions for the various surfaces we forced through the press.
We spent days experimenting with the pressure on the press to find the right dampness for the paper to get a perfect embossment without wrinkles. These embossments were put on open-air racks, where the paper undulated gently as it dried.
Tauba Auerbach: Embossment Painting No. 5, 2011
Once dry, the paper was prepared by masking the edges to keep the margins white. Tauba then used an airbrush to carefully coat the dry embossed paper with various colors. She angled her airbrush so that, as the fine spray landed on the paper, it captured the embossment’s impression as well as the undulation of the dried, thick cotton paper. After these embossment paintings were dry, the paintings were put in a paper press to flatten the paper.
The end result is a painting on paper that is a remarkable 3D trompe l'oeil. But in fact, these paintings function as a beautiful historical record of how the surface of the paper was changed, first by embossment and then by drying.
During that project, Tauba created several different bodies of work. All of them related to her interest in the intersection between our perceptions of 2D and our perceptions of 3D.
Tauba Auerbach: Topo Slice/Fold I, and Topo Slice/Fold II, 2011 Color Aquatint etching
One elegant example is her two prints Topo Slice/Fold I and Topo Slice/Fold II. These are images that were made by taking a 2D plane, a piece of paper, and folding it into a small irregular shape made 3D by the folding. Tauba then cut the tightly folded paper into regular parallel strips, carefully numbering each fragment of paper with the order in which it was cut. Once completely sliced, the paper strips were unfolded and reconstructed as a single flat plane again. The cut paper served as a stencil to make two copper plates for each image: the even slices and the odd slices. When the plates were etched and finished, color proofing began. Tauba assigned colors to each slice, allowing us to visually reconstruct the folding and slicing history of the paper. In essence, she created a topographical recording of the history of folding and then slicing the paper.
1. Reassembled folded and sliced paper on top copper plate.
2. Water flattens the cut paper and sticks paper to plate. Odd slices removed exposing copper plate creates a stencil.
3. Spray painted copper plate with stencil paper removed.
In 2011, Tauba also created her book [2,3]. This beautiful boxed set of six portfolios, each with a different hand-cut popup enclosed, takes the concept of 2D versus 3D to a whole new level.
