{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1438672"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1438672/"}},"images":null,"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1438672","accessionNumber":"E.706-2018","objectType":"print","titles":[{"title":"Into the Black","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Christiane Baumgartner (born 1967, Leipzig) is an internationally renowned artist who works almost exclusively in print, and mostly with woodcut, often on a very large scale, and usually in monochrome. Her work characteristically blurs the boundaries between figuration and abstraction – as here – and the imagery in her painstakingly carved wood blocks is derived from the most contemporary forms of image-making – digital photography and video.\n\r\nShe studied printmaking in Leipzig, before spending two years on a Printmaking Masters course at the RCA (1997-99). Her work in this period focussed on video and was often exhibited as stills from video works; she was already interested in the ways in which a figurative source often reads as an abstract image, depending on the light and the way the image is cropped or framed. When she returned to Leipzig she was keen to work by hand again, and saw fruitful possibilities in the combination of two reproductive techniques – the slow painstaking process of woodcut and the contemporary high-speed process of video. \n\r\nIn effect she translates video stills, or details of those stills into woodcut blocks. Her working method involves selecting a still, manipulating it through Photoshop to impose a filter of horizontal lines and traces this onto a sheet of wood. She then cuts the block with lines that swell to print the darker areas and narrow for the lighter areas. The finished image looks like a blurred or low resolution translation of the image she started with, and the process introduces ambiguity and dissolution. Her aim in making these prints is, in part, to explore the experience of looking and how the eye and the brain register visual data. By choosing to recreate a ‘fast’ image by means of a ‘slow’ process, she also creates a narrative of time passing. She freezes a moment, isolating it from context and challenging its legibility.\n\r\nThis print comes from her latest body of work, exhibited under the title ‘Liquid Light’, depicting ever-changing natural phenomena such as the effect of different light sources – sun, moon, electric light – on landscape scenes. Some images are sourced as before from her own video stills but she has also sourced images from magazines and the internet.\r\n","physicalDescription":"Landscape-format abstract image printed in dark blue on Japanese paper","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Baumgartner, Christiane","id":"AUTH348603"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"ink","id":"AAT187371"},{"text":"paper","id":"x30308"}],"techniques":[{"text":"woodcut","id":"AAT53296"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Woodcut on Japanese Misumi paper","categories":[{"text":"Prints","id":"THES48903"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":[],"imageResolution":"none","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLC","id":"THES49171"},"free":"","case":"MB4C","shelf":"EW","box":"134A"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"print","id":"AAT41273"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Germany","id":"x28873"},"association":{"text":"printed","id":"x46159"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"2017","earliest":"2017-01-01","latest":"2017-12-31"},"association":{"text":"printed","id":"x46159"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"In memory of Martin Roth 1955-2017. Purchased with the support of Julie and Robert Breckman","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"39.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"58.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"26","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"image","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"40","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"image","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"II/X 'Into the Black' Baumgartner 2017","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":""}],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Christiane Baumgartner: Into the Black, 2017. Woodcut. ","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["E.706-2018"],"accessionNumberNum":"706","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":2018,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"II/X","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-08-14","recordCreationDate":"2018-04-17","availableToBook":false}}