Warp / Weft - Works by Robert Rauschenberg and Liz Deschenes - Exhibitions

Emanuela Campoli is pleased to announce Warp / Weft: Works by Robert Rauschenberg and Liz Deschenes.

Vancouver (1980) by Robert Rauschenberg is a point of departure for the exhibition: a black and white photograph of apparently simple elements - parts of the alphabet, poles, armatures and lights scattered on the floor. Specifically chosen by Liz Deschenes for the exhibition, it is a reminder of the myriad ways in which the photographic was embedded in Rauschenberg’s work, but also a stand in for the potential of an artistic practice itself.

If Vancouver conveys indexicality and photomechanical processes, Liz Deschenes’ Gorilla Glass series breaks down the elements that usually define that same process. Made of ultra-thin glass engineered for screen displays and phones, one side frustrates its designed optical transparency with the printing itself while the other is left glossy. Her Rubylith works reference one of the most widespread masking techniques utilized in all photomechanical practices - including silkscreen printing, frequently employed by Rauschenberg. Rubylith is a functional red designed for utility—its hue blocks light.

Her black monochrome Gorilla Glass works reflect on the textile materiality of Pimiento IV (1976), featured on the first floor. Warp and Weft, the fundamental system of weaving that interlaces lengthwise and crosswise threads, can affect the way light modulates through thin and translucent surfaces. Their banded horizontal striations are produced by printer feed deliberate misregistrations, much like stitches’ rhythmic on-off pattern. The works continue Deschenes’ study on aberrations and unwanted effects as a subject matter itself, present in her seminal series of Moirées (2007-12) where there is no constituted image.

Robert Rauschenberg’s Jammer Pimiento IV (1976) represents a temporary removal from his image-based work towards a material exploration of fabric and color. The series title, Jammers, is a nod to "windjammer" sailing vessels, reflecting the nautical and free-flowing nature of these pieces. Inspired by laundry lines and hanging fabrics that he had previously seen and photographed, the series is deeply rooted in his experience in India. The bamboo or rattan poles physically support the textiles, allowing them to hang, drape, or billow, while giving the work a sculptural presence. Deschenes’ Retaining (2025), a transparent solid cast glass pole leans on the wall beside it, not only referencing Rauschenberg’s as a structural support, but as a way of holding and reframing the architecture of the space.
The convex-shaped Claude Glass (2023), installed opposite Retaining (2025) references the small, convex mirror—typically made from highly polished black obsidian—used by landscape painters from the 17th Century onward to view and simplify complex natural scenes. By reflecting the landscape in a curved, darkened surface, the device reduced visual information, compressing depth and reducing tonal range. This helped artists distill the overwhelming richness of a scene into a more manageable composition. The device is named after Claude Lorrain, the 17th-century French painter known for his idealized classical landscapes, which also used color filters to create them. This palette has informed many of Deschenes’ Gorilla Glass works, or at least the approximate range available before color standardization.

Liz Deschenes (b. 1966, Boston) lives and works in New York. Her solo exhibition Frames per second (silent) is currently on view at Eastman Museum in NY. Institutional solo exhibitions of her work have been held at the ICA Boston (2016); MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2015); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2014); and Secession, Vienna (2012). Recent major group exhibitions include Nineteenth-Century Photography Now, The Getty, Los Angeles; Put It This Way: (Re)visions of the Hirshhorn Collection, Washington, DC (2023); Geneva Biennale: Sculpture Garden, Switzerland (2022); Une seconde d’éternité, Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce, Paris (2022); Shifting the Silence, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2022); True Pictures? Contemporary Photography from Canada and the USA, Sprengel Museum, Hanover (2021); The Inconstant World, ICA Los Angeles (2021); and Luogo e Segni, Pinault Collection – Punta della Dogana, Venice (2019). Her work was included in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, and is held in the permanent collections of Centre Pompidou, Paris; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Whitney Museum of American Art; Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Walker Art Center; Art Institute of Chicago; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art; Corcoran Museum of Art; Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; and Pinault Collection, among others.