Sapar Contemporary is proud to announce the gallery’s first exhibition by German American artist, Benigna Chilla (b.1940). The exhibition is focused on the artist’s paper sculptures from 1970s – a remarkable body of work that showcases Chilla’s innovative use of printmaking, as well as her

various influences from Bauhaus to minimalism and kinetic art.

Benigna Chilla (Hamburg, Germany, 1940) began her studies in Germany at the Folkwangschule für Gestaltung in Essen. She studied a broad range of skills, from typesetting to drawing, sculpture and printmaking. Chilla received her “Meisterschüler” in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin in 1968.

Chilla emigrated to the United States in 1969, settling in Chatham, NY. Having studied with Bauhaus professors in Germany, Chilla’s initial encounters with Minimalism in America sparked an engagement with principles of planar geometry around 1970; and her intuitive and personal pursuit of form and order would guide her practice for the rest of her career. For practical reasons, Chilla undertook further graduate studies at the State University of New York, Albany and University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the early 1970s. She had access to printing presses but limited resources, and she repurposed fragments of other artists’ discarded plates to create her work. Never interested in editions, Chilla transformed her prints into unique sculptural forms, beginning a decades-long, pioneering exploration of the conversation between two and threedimensionality in art that continued with her optical paintings on layered screens from the 1980s until the early 2000s. By the 1990s, Chilla began to circulate her observations and theories on the relationship between mathematics and art, publishing in academic journals and presenting her work at conferences globally.

In the past decade, Chilla has returned to working principally on large canvases, building herideas in paint and with remnants of textiles, which she uses both to create texture and as a material adhered to the surface. Increasingly, the artist’s color-block forms, iconometric compositions, and even the scroll-like formats of her work reflect the importance of the time she has spent in Asia to her practice. She has had over forty solo exhibitions both in the United States and internationally.

The exhibition is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 AM to 6 PM. We’d love for you to visit the show before it closes on October 18th.

Date and Time: started September 6, 2024 until October 18, 2024

Location: Sapar Contemporary, 9 N Moore, New York, NY 10013

More Information: https://www.saparcontemporary.com/exhibitions#/benignachillafolded-print-constructions-1970s