Christopher Taggart — Cuts and Splits, installation view, 2013
Exhibitions/2013/Cuts and Splits

Cuts and Splits

Christopher Taggart
Eli Ridgway Gallery, San Francisco · March 16 – May 4, 2013

Eli Ridgway Gallery is pleased to present Cuts and Splits, the gallery's second solo exhibition of Bay Area artist Christopher Taggart. Presenting hyper-intricate composites of dissected and recombined imagery — originally personal photographs, playing cards, and government-compiled archival data — Cuts and Splits is an investigation into the intensive process of ordering and reordering traditional systems of visual organization. Taggart's dedication to complex patterns of growth, accumulation, and regeneration has led him to further expand the medium-non-specific practice he is known for.

Cuts and Splits features large-scale image composites, etchings, video and sculpture, all exploring the theme of the capriciousness of multiplication. The digital photographic collage Colony combines and restructures aerial photographs of 21 California state prisons, while the video 100 Years Later is a contemporary, kinetic interpretation of Marcel Duchamp's iconic Nude Descending a Staircase.

Concurrently with Cuts and Splits, Taggart unveils a 52-foot permanent installation at the UC Davis Veterinary Medicine Research Center. Blue Column comprises 13 monumental etchings on aluminum panel, paralleling the meticulous craft, detail and fragmentation in the current exhibition.

Works in the exhibitionTen works · click to enlarge
Colony (Scales of Justice)
Colony (Scales of Justice)
2013 · archival inkjet and enamel on acrylic plastic · 26 × 72 in
Edition of 2
Photographer Of/On the Earth
Photographer Of/On the Earth
2013 · hand-cut photographs on archival inkjet print · 17 × 13 × 2 in
(Portrait Of My Wife As A) Tornado
(Portrait Of My Wife As A) Tornado
2012 · archival inkjet prints, various mechanical elements · 22 × 24 × 20 in
(Real) Nude (Military Men)
(Real) Nude (Military Men)
2010 · hand-cut UV laminated photographs on wood · 124 × 60 in
Kudu (in the International Style)
Kudu (in the International Style)
2011 · scribed and engraved anodized aluminum panel · 48 × 36 × 2 in
Filling Out Forms
Filling Out Forms
2011 · pigmented Urethane plastic, payphone handset, expired prescription medicine · 12 × 17 × 14 in
People Looking at People
People Looking at People
2008 · hand-cut UV laminated photographs on wood · 112 × 135 in
Altogether Significant Nudes (with Nimitta)
Altogether Significant Nudes (with Nimitta)
2012 · hand-cut photographs on archival inkjet print · 29 × 21 × 2 in
Marder (In the Supermarket)
Marder (In the Supermarket)
2012 · scribed and engraved anodized aluminum panel · 40 × 48 in
Apache Stump
Apache Stump
2012 · archival inkjet print · 24 × 18 in
Edition of 2