AUTHOR: NULL
PUBLICATIONS: ON PAPER – (P.41)
DATED: NOV / DEC 1997

Zarina, Homes I Made: A Life in Nine Lines (1997), a boxed portfolio of nine etchings with spit bite and chine collé in an edition of 20 plus two artists proofs. Each measures 20-1/2×19 in (paper) and 14×13 in. (image) and was printed on Nepalese handmade paper mounted on Arches Cover paper by the artist in Santa Cruz. “I understood from an early age that home is not necessarily a permanent place: It is an idea we carry with us wherever we go,” writes Zarina, born in India ten years before independence, and widely travelled ever since All her works, whether sculptures or works on paper, address the subject of home. This portfolio will be included in an exhibition of expatriate Indian artists which opens at the Queens Museum this month, along with more than 1,000 of Zarinas tiny black cast-aluminium houses mounted on a wall. All but one of the prints, printed on a brownish, speckled handmade paper are floor plans of houses in each of nine cities where Zarina has set up residence; only Bangkoks house is diagrammed as an elevation. They range in complexity from a four-bedroom flat in Paris to the simple, gridded rectangle of a Tokyo house comprising four-and-a-half tatami. While they look pretty convincing, dont be fooled: they are done from memory, and are especially evocative as such. Price: $2,500. Published by the artist, New York.