Archeology of a Studio
Ann Pachner

GALLERY I

September 10 - October 9, 2022

Opening reception: Saturday, September 10 from 6-8pm

A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Archeology of a Studio, Ann Pachner’s fourteenth solo exhibition at the gallery. Archeology of a Studio is a collection of works—sculptures, prints, and drawings—that unfold over a period of five decades, each standing in for a particular moment in time.

“Don’t look back” is a certain wisdom, for there is a certain treachery there. The moment is past, the engagement no longer. The spark that the artist had, the leap that was made, is out of range. The vitality of the doing has escaped.

Pachner views the works in this exhibition like shells strewn along the beach, the leavings of distant sparks. Still there is a reaching out—hand stretched toward that vitality—and then a falling back. Failures/steps; there it stands. The story could be told this way or that way. Pachner chose chisels, adzes, files, and saws.

She says: “The studio was the place where my father would go and from where he would emerge. Perhaps my younger self recognized something wonderful there. As a child I visited many artists’ studios and later Beethoven’s and Mozart’s rooms and Thomas Cole’s studio. I sensed the magnitude of these spaces. I always took up residence in a live/work space. With the privilege, the courage, the longing and will, like others, we made these spaces in which to journey—these alchemical vessels.”

The forthcoming 240 page catalog Glimpses of Here is a comprehensive survey of the work of New York-based contemporary artist Ann Pachner. Glimpses of Here highlights the artist’s dedication to an expansive practice and represents sculptures, prints, and drawings made over more than five decades. Most notable for her contemplative approach, mastery of materials and tools, her incorporation of digital technology in recent years, and the staying power demonstrated in her long and prolific career, Pachner has presented thirteen one-person exhibitions at A.I.R. Gallery in New York City and received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Additional exhibitions were presented in Sweden, Hungary, and other United States sites.

Essayist Steven Alexander writes, “On a deeper level, Pachner achieves, through a combination of focused simplicity and exquisite sensuousness, a distinct emotional intensity, a silent presence in her imagery that transcends the distinction between ancient and contemporary, existing beyond the formal in a sort of timeless enraptured stillness.”

View the PDF version of Glimpses of Here here.

View the Press Release here.

View Ann Pachner’s page here.

Recent Press

Noelani Kirschner, “Ann Pachner,” The American Scholar, October 17, 2022.

“Hyperallergic Fall 2022 New York Art Guide”, Hyperallergic, August 31, 2022,

Photography: Sebastian Bach