Artist’s reception for Searching for a New Planet Jan. 31

Theo Ganz Studio presents Ilse Schreiber-Noll’s ongoing series Searching for a New Planet (Only History Remains) 2002–2014, which will include sculpture, books, drawings and paintings and be on view from Jan. 31 through Feb. 22. An opening reception will take place for the artist on Saturday, Jan. 31, from 3 to 5 p.m. (rescheduled from Jan. 24). The artist’s work was most recently included in the gallery’s group show Cape Dorset and Points South in July 2014.

Searching for a New Planet, for which Schreiber-Noll received a Puffin Foundation Grant, has become a multimedia meditation on the plight of our planet using children as “the narrative to bring awareness to the issues that are posing serious threats to humanity” — violence and war, environmental catastrophes, disease and famine. While the theme of the project is dark and unyielding (read the artist’s full statement at theoganzstudio.com) her small-scale drawings and paintings convey a lyrical, almost storybook mood of possibility and adventure.

The whimsical little collaged figures of children traipsing across planetary dune-scapes remind us, perhaps, that we are on the brink of an era in which humans will spend extended periods of time in deep space. The artist’s propensity for taking one image and improvising on the possibilities is evident in five small original pastels as well as in the The Children’s Walk series, which continues to grow as the years go by. Large-scale prints have been produced of the small drawings and will be available.

Schreiber-Noll was born in Germany and attended the University of Marburg before moving to the United States to study woodcut and the art of the book with the Uruguayan-American artist Antonio Frasconi. In 1989 she received her MFA from SUNY Purchase and later taught The Art of the Book with Frasconi, whose politically driven subjects combined with her own lifelong reading of the German poets and authors, especially Bertolt Brecht, and inspired her strong sense of social justice.

She worked with Eric Bentley, the playwright, translator and preeminent authority on Brecht, and collaborated with him in producing over 10 books with her woodblock prints, pen-and-ink drawings, aquarelles and collages. Other luminaries with whom she collaborated include Joseph Brodsky, Dennis Brutus, Galway Kinnell, Octavio Paz and John Cage. Some of her most lyrical, elegiac work, in any medium, can be found among these limited edition and unique books. Many are in public and private collections worldwide.

The artist’s work has been recorded in catalogs and included in numerous exhibition publications, which will be at hand at the exhibition. For further information on the artist and her work, contact Eleni Smolen at [email protected] or 917-318-2239.

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