New Silkscreens
Petzel is pleased to present a set of twelve silkscreen prints by Jorge Pardo on view May 11–16 on the third floor of our Upper East Side location at 35 East 67th Street to accompany the artist's presentation at TEFAF New York. These prints meld images culled from familial and institutional archives with artworks formative to his creative development. By layering up to twenty different images “gesturally,” as he says, Pardo transmutes personal and cultural signifiers into dazzlingly hued, stratified abstractions of memories.
Pardo, who was processed to the United States as a Cuban refugee, mines his and others’ family portraits, which the Cuban regime confiscated and intentionally sent to erroneous addresses years later. These photographs are then abstracted and interwoven with imagery of artworks that have served as cornerstones of influence in his own process. Some of the artworks that are featured include paintings by Willem de Kooning and work by his contemporaries like Laura Owens. Pardo’s own pieces, including his iconic hanging lamps are illustrated in these prints, reinforcing the idea that the superimposed images function as a form of self-portraiture.
While recognizable fragments peek through the final prints, the artist locates his interest in the affective mood and emotion produced by the abstraction, rather than specific memorialization. Furthermore, he analogizes the montage and assimilation of the source images to the process of assimilation he underwent as an immigrant to a new land.
