Joan Giordano

"Free Press" Mixed media paper, wall relief sculpture

2016

Over 100 international museums have exhibited Joan Giordano’s work for half a century, who has pushed the boundaries of the many materials she works with: handmade paper, recycled copper, encaustic wax, rolled newspapers, and steel, to name a few. She is enchanted by the cycles of change the materials reveal and the poetic sentiments they evoke. Joan masterfully molds beautiful forms that are as tough as they are delicate, as spiritual as they are material, and as abstract as they are laden with layers of history that can be “read” by viewers. Sometimes the readings are literal, as with her most recent body of work that features layers of text from newspapers from around the world. Other times, the reading is more metaphorical and spiritual, like fragments of memories we feel most when our senses are awakened. This artistic “alchemy” is often achieved through Giordano’s intricate juxtaposition of materials - and the unconventional way she works them. Shifting from two to three dimensional representation of forms was a pivotal shift in Giordano’s practice and is a defining element of her career. When she began making paper by hand in the 1970s, she fell in love with the tactile quality of moving plant fibers in water. She developed her lauded “Steel Angels” during this period - large steel armatures with layers of mesh and paper pulp, hand-applied paint, and encaustic wax. Her “Steel Angels” were exhibited around the world and became a coveted part of the United States’ Art in Embassies program. Soon after, Giordano was invited to study kozo papermaking at the Fujimori Factory in Japan with master paper maker Yoshi Fujimori, a national treasure who taught her Japan’s famed ancient techniques. Through these collaborative workshops, Giordano created “Washi Warrior,” which translates to “Paper Warrior” - a massive paper sculpture that resembles the steel armor of ancient Japanese warriors while retaining the fineness of paper. This counterintuitive balancing of delicacy with toughness is an ongoing, defining feature of Giordano’s work. Many movements and artists have inspired individual aspects of her practice. Through repeated gouging, burning, rubbing, and welding metals like steel, Giordano’s work calls forth the industrial force of sculptures by Frank Stella. Her use of humble, found materials - such as recycled copper - places her work in conversation with arte povera artists like Guiseppe Penone, as well as contemporary assemblage masters like El Anatsui and Judy Pfaff. Her most recent series of work takes the tactility of paper, and the physical processes of burning and shaping it, into the realm of political commentary in the spirit of Jenny Holzer’s recent “Dust Paintings.” Whereas Holzer paints over sensitive government documents, Giordano collects and assembles newspaper articles from around the world into her archetypal sculptural shapes. The pieces invite viewers to see how the same news stories are presented in different ways. It asks us to ponder, “Who Owns the News?”