Dmitri Cherniak

2023

Ringers #962: The LACMA Iterations

Avant Arte · LACMA

Made with Avant Arte in support of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The LACMA Iterations revisits Ringers #962 through nine variations. The original composition occupies the centre of a three-by-three grid.

Each variation changes the proportion of pegs wrapped by the string, while retaining the yellow peg. Seen together, they reveal how one parameter can reshape a composition.

The edition pairs an embossed screenprint with an NFT of the same artwork. Released through a 24-hour ordering window, it comprises 726 prints. Proceeds supported LACMA.

Year
2023
Edition
726
Print size
50 × 50 cm
Medium
Three-colour screenprint in seven layers, with embossing
Publisher
Avant Arte
Nine black, white, and yellow Ringers variations arranged in a three-by-three grid on paper.
Ringers #962: The LACMA Iterations, 2023.

From code to print

This artwork was made with code

An illustrated card breaks the algorithm into six steps: generate, sample, center, sort, connect, and colour. It traces the path from a regular field of pegs to the wrapped form of Ringers #962, making the logic behind the printed image visible.

Six diagrams: a five-by-five grid of black pegs; a sampled subset; lines from a center point; pegs numbered in wrapping order around the center; a continuous outline wrapping the pegs; and the filled black form with white and yellow pegs.

Behind the scenes

Making the print

The digital composition becomes a physical print through screenprinting and embossing. Prepared screens and film separations carry the image into the workshop; the embossed surface gives the pegs and string a tactile presence.

A person holds a screenprinting frame with yellow Ringers forms against green mesh, with more prepared screens behind it.
Screens prepared for printing The LACMA Iterations.
Black Ringers forms appear on a transparent film separation.
A film separation used in the printing process.
Yellow ink covers the four-by-four grid on a screenprinting press in the workshop.
Screenprinting the yellow grid for the XL edition.
A close view of the printed Ringers grid beneath its metal embossing plate.
The printed sheet and embossing plate.

The print

In the studio

The photographs follow the print from its embossed surface to signing and framing.

Black Ringer shapes and white circular pegs raised above yellow squares.
Screenprint and embossing detail.
Dmitri Cherniak holding the three-by-three print in his studio.
Dmitri Cherniak with The LACMA Iterations.
Dmitri Cherniak signing the lower margin of a LACMA Iterations print.
Signing the print.
Dmitri Cherniak positioning a framed LACMA Iterations print on a wall.
Installing the framed print.
A card showing six steps of the Ringers algorithm rests on the print beneath bubble wrap.
“This artwork was made with code.” The illustrated algorithm card with The LACMA Iterations.
The LACMA Iterations framed in white, set in foam inside a wooden crate on a dark floor, numbered 16/726 and signed.
A framed print, 16/726, in its shipping crate.

The XL edition

Sixteen variations, four by four

The XL print expands the composition into a four-by-four grid. Sixteen stages move from a sparse arrangement of pegs to a densely wrapped form, making the progression visible across a single sheet.

Measuring 120 × 120 cm, the XL edition comprised five prints, offered through a random draw to collectors of the main edition.

Sixteen yellow-ground Ringers variations arranged in a four-by-four grid.
Ringers #962: The LACMA Iterations. XL print.
Grid
4 × 4 · 16 variations
Dimensions
120 × 120 cm
Edition
5

With LACMA

In conversation with Dhyandra Lawson

Dmitri Cherniak visits LACMA and sits down with curator Dhyandra Lawson to discuss generative art, the origins of Ringers, and the role of randomness in his work.

Shown at

Exhibitions