SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Building a web of connections across time and media, Tauba Auerbach — S v Z —Auerbach’s first museum survey debuting at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—brings together 17 years of the San Francisco-born New York-based artist’s artworks as well as designed and found objects, prototypes, reference materials and open-edition publications produced and distributed by their imprint Diagonal Press.

Auerbach’s interdisciplinary work asks us to consider the ways that structure, pattern and gesture function at intricate and vast scales. Often testing the boundaries of rational systems such as language, logic, geometry and physics, Auerbach is driven by a curiosity about where these established principles break down or become subjective. Undermining what the artist calls the “habituated gaze,” the work contends with questions of what and how we perceive, exploring the existence of multidimensional space and the resonant capacity of certain shapes and forms.

Auerbach studies these ideas by manipulating them in drawings, sculptures and paintings, employing them in custom-built production tools, and incorporating them into objects that can be lived with or worn. A continual student of new and traditional craft technologies, including weaving, marbling, glass working, and 3-D printing, the artist has a longstanding relationship with hand-lettering and calligraphy.

“Auerbach moves fluidly across disciplines and interests,” said Joseph Becker, SFMOMA associate curator of architecture and design. “From developing tools and methodologies for their paintings and sculptures which play upon our perceptions of space and time, to probing semiotics and design with their work in typography and architectural ornament.”

“Auerbach is one of those rare artists who has the ability to open numerous worlds at once by connecting an exploration of the symbolic capacity of geometric form to concepts and fields that expand our understanding of nature, our anatomy and consciousness,” continued Jenny Gheith, SFMOMA associate curator of painting and sculpture.

The comprehensive presentation is designed by Auerbach, along with an in-depth catalogue that serves as both an artist book and an index of work, process and references, created in collaboration with graphic designer David Reinfurt. The title S v Z further embodies the close yet indeterminate relationship between form and meaning that surfaces throughout the artist’s practice. The letters “S” and “Z” represent the two possible directions of the helix, a recurring structure in Auerbach’s work and in the universe. These letterforms are near mirror reflections, with subtle differences. Linking them here with a “v”—the symbol in mathematical logic for “and/or”—subverts their apparent opposition, extending the artist’s ongoing considerations of ambiguity, (non)duality and asymmetry.




EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS

Auerglass Organ (2009)
The Auerglass Organ is a two-person collaborative pump organ created by Tauba Auerbach and the musician Cameron Mesirow (also known as Glasser). The Auerglass Organ will be performed throughout the run of the exhibition.

Folds (2009–13)
The Fold paintings are an exploration of dimensionality and the technical process of painting, comprising trompe l’oeil compositions that give the appearance of being three-dimensional while existing on a flat canvas.

Weaves (2012–15)
In the Weaves series, Auerbach explores the materiality and structure of canvas itself by creating interwoven surfaces that form complex patterns based on architecture and light.

Grain (2017–present)
The Grain paintings are created with custom-made tools that Auerbach drags through layers of color, resulting in canvases that are embedded with ornamental and fractal forms read through the physicality of gesture.

Diagonal Press (2013 to present)
Diagonal Press is the artist’s imprint for open-editioned publications, including books, typographic specimens, jewelry and mathematical toys.

Tauba Auerbach was born in San Francisco, California in 1981, and lives and works in New York. Though best known for painting, Auerbach works in a variety of media including weaving, glass, photography, 3D printing, typeface design, book-making and musical instrument design. In 2013, the artist founded Diagonal Press to formalize their ongoing publishing practice. Auerbach was awarded SFMOMA’s SECA Art Award in 2008, marking their first solo museum presentation. Since then, the artist’s work has been internationally recognized and featured in solo exhibitions and performances in New York, London, Oslo and Sweden.