JILL BAROFF | PLUS ÇA CHANGE

Press Release

“Being identical is not always like being the same,” observes Reinhard Ermen in his recent article about Jill Baroff’s work in Kunstforum International. That statement could be applied to each body of work in this exhibition, be it the movement of tidal water, the constant passage of a river, the likeness of doubled forms or the infinite possibilities of a border when moved into the space it confines.

Tide and River Drawings, an ongoing series which describes the pattern and movement of the water around us, was begun in 2002. Jens Peter Koerver described these large, hand-drawn interpretations of data in his catalogue for the Folkwang Museum as “eventful, visually lively pictorial spaces situated in a fundamentally charged push and pull between difference and repetition, momentary singularity and permanence.” Shown along with the five circular tide drawings will be drawings from other waters, based on patterns of tide and current of the Hudson River. Employing the use of hand-built curves, multiple passes are made on the surface of the drawing to create moiré patters, reminiscent of the surface of moving water. Embracing the idea of change being central to the universe, Heraclitus posited that you could not step twice into the same river, for other waters are ever flowing onto you.

The exhibition is completed with edges, reversals and increments: new, paired, painted wood structures and floating line drawings based on the borderline format of architectural drafting paper. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Jill Baroff received her B.F.A. from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH, participated at the Artist Seminar Program at the Whitney Museum of Art, NY, and attended Post Graduate Studies at Hunter College, NY. She has been exhibiting nationally and internationally for many years. Recent exhibitions include Drawing Rooms – Trends in Contemporary Graphic Art, at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, in a grove at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, For Eternity, Kunstraum Alexander Burkle, Freiburg, Germany and Field Recordings, Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne, Germany. Her work can be found in many of the world’s leading public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, Staedel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, Germany, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, Yale University Art Museum, New Haven, CT and The Menil Collection, Houston, TX.