Panagea

Saul Chernick, artist

born 1975

Panagea, 2011

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: relief print; screen print; Rives BFK™ paper

Dimensions:
Plate Mark/Block Dimensions (Height x Width): 367 x 595 mm
Plate Mark/Block Dimensions (Height x Width): 14 7/16 x 23 7/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 509 x 722 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 20 1/16 x 28 7/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 24 x 32 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Elmer F. Pierson Fund

Accession number: 2011.0074

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

In these works, Saul Chernick considers the impermanence and mutability of meanings that are invested in icons and symbols. He incorporates imagery drawn from woodcuts created in 15th- and 16thcentury Northern Europe, along with aspects of the visual languages of computing. In Chernick’s own words, these images seek to “merge the conventional idea of an icon as a representation of the sacred, with the modern-day, technological conception as an image that represents a specific file, directory, window, option, or program.” Through his juxtaposition of these two forms of visual communication, the artist reveals each as a cryptic system whose significance is determined, in part, by the experiences of its viewers and its participation in a broader web of meanings.
Chernick suggests that the iconography of computing as we know it, with its windows, toolbars, and drop-down menus, will someday fall into obscurity, just as the symbolic implications of Renaissance imagery have become confused with time. However, by juxtaposing these visual means of transmitting information, the artist also foregrounds formal and conceptual continuities that seem to bridge temporal boundaries that separate past from present. Thus, Book of Windows and Pangea demonstrate the compelling allure and weight of symbols, even in the absence of their original contexts.

Exhibition Label:
"Cryptograph: An Exhibition for Alan Turing," Mar-2012, Stephen Goddard
In these works, Saul Chernick considers the impermanence and mutability of meanings that are invested in icons and symbols. He incorporates imagery drawn from woodcuts created in 15th- and 16th-century Northern Europe, along with aspects of the visual languages of computing. In Chernick’s own words, these images seek to “merge the conventional idea of 16 an icon as a representation of the sacred, with the modernday, technological conception as an image that represents a specific file, directory, window, option, or program.” Through his juxtaposition of these two forms of visual
communication, the artist reveals each as a cryptic system whose significance is determined, in part, by the experiences of its viewers and its participation in a broader web of meanings.

Chernick suggests that the iconography of computing, as we know it, with its windows, toolbars, and drop-down menus,
will someday fall into obscurity, just as the symbolic implications of Renaissance imagery have become confused with time. However, by juxtaposing these visual means of transmitting information, the artist also foregrounds formal
and conceptual continuities that seem to bridge temporal boundaries that separate past from present. Thus, Book of Windows and Pangea demonstrate the compelling allure and
weight of symbols, even in the absence of their original contexts. CFK © 2012 Conner Family Trust, San Francisco / Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York