Gagosian Gallery

The Gagosian App for iPad

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:48:47 EST

2011
Gagosian Shop Gallery

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Artists highlighted in Issue #2: Cecily Brown, John Chamberlain, Douglas Gordon, Arshile Gorky, Joel Morrison, Takashi Murakami, Elizabeth Peyton, Pablo Picasso, Ed Ruscha, Mark Tansey, Robert Therrien, and Andy Warhol

Updated quarterly, this free app provides an overview of exhibitions and projects at Gagosian Gallery. Offering unprecedented access and a wealth of art historical knowledge, this truly immersive interactive art experience is designed to both educate and entertain.

Features include:
* Gigapixel and hi-res tiling imagery for select works
* Touch-sensitive “sketch” viewer
* 180˚ and 360˚ virtual reality object viewer
* Dual channel 3D room
* Artwork rotator
* Audio commentary
* Gallery and shop panoramas
* Video interviews
* Full exhibition calendar
* Artist bios, location maps, artist reviews

The Gagosian app continues the gallery’s longstanding commitment to documenting the work of its artists. The app was designed and developed by @radical.media on behalf of Gagosian Gallery, Inc.

Media Contact for Gagosian
Meg Blackburn
FITZ & CO
T. 212.627.1455, ext. 225
E. meg@fitzandco.com

Media Contact for @radical.media
Aaron Gannon
Sunshine, Sachs, & Associates
T. 212.691.2800

Gagosian App Reader FAQs:

How do I get the iPad app?
Download the app from the iTunes App Store. The app is compatible with iOS 4.2 or later. Please be sure to upgrade your software before downloading if necessary.

What’s new in Issue #2?
In addition to the dual channel 3D room, artwork rotator, audio commentary, and increased stability, Version 2.0 introduces the Issue Manager to store and browse multiple issues. If you have already downloaded the app, the Version 2.0 will replace your existing version. If you want to browse Issue #1 again, you will need to redownload Issue #1 within the Issue Manager.

How much does the app cost?
The app is free.

What content will be included in the app?
The app provides an overview of exhibitions, projects, and events at Gagosian Gallery worldwide, including excerpts from recent related publications, as well as videos and additional content created uniquely for this interactive art experience.

Does the quarterly issue expire?
No. Once you download an issue you will have access to it on your iPad for as long as you keep the app.

How do I know if there is an issue update?
Please check the App Store for updates.

When is the next issue available?
Issues will be released quarterly.

Can I subscribe?
Subscriptions are not available at this time.

Is the Gagosian app available for the iPhone or iPod touch?
The Gagosian app has been created specifically for the iPad.

For any more questions or comments about the Gagosian app, please email ipad@gagosian.com.

Avedon / Paris

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:02:49 EST

September 29 - December 17, 2011
Geneva Gallery

[Scroll down for French version / Veuillez trouver ci-dessous la version française]

Opening reception: Thursday, September 29th, from 6 to 8 pm

I came in at a time when there weren’t any young photographers working in a free way. Everyone was tired, the war was over, Dior let the skirts down, and suddenly everything was fun. It was historically a marvelous moment for a fashion photographer to begin.
-- Richard Avedon

During a career that spanned nearly sixty years, Richard Avedon re-defined fashion and portrait photography in an extraordinary body of work about beauty, power, age, and identity. Ranging across a full breadth of subject matter in reportage, portraiture, fashion, and advertising work, he dissolved the perceived barriers between photography’s many genres.

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of Avedon’s early fashion photography, depicting women in elegant couture amidst the cafés, nightclubs, and street life of postwar Paris. Appearing in Harper's Bazaar at the height of its influence, his photographs were instrumental in changing the popular understanding of fashion. Indeed, their influence still resonates in the fashion magazines of today.

The photographs in this exhibition were selected by Avedon in 1978 for the portfolio Avedon/Paris, on the eve of a retrospective exhibition of his fashion work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They depict celebrated beauties in high fashion, including Marlene Dietrich in Dior, Dorian Leigh in Piguet, and Suzy Parker in Lanvin-Castillo. These photographs exemplify Avedon’s innovative style during his earliest creative peak: his models are full of expression, smiling, laughing, and posed in action in the City of Light.

Avedon began his professional career in 1942 as a photographer with the U.S. Merchant Marine. In 1945, he set up his own studio and worked as a freelance photographer for various magazines. Mentored by leading graphic designer Alexey Brodovitch and legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland, he rapidly rose to the top of his profession to become the preeminent photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. He continued to shoot fashion photographs and portraits for magazines throughout his career. Parting ways with Harper's Bazaar in 1965, he began a working relationship with Vogue that continued through 1988. In later years, he established formidable creative partnerships with the French periodical Egoïste and The New Yorker, reinvigorating his style within their pages.

Avedon’s fashion images never conformed to the prevailing standard of models posed without emotion, aloof from the camera, and seemingly devoid of personality. Instead, he set models in action, provoking them to appear questioning, authoritative, unruly, beaming, and self-consciously alive. Keenly aware of the melancholy inherent in the fleeting nature of great beauty, his incisive photographs crystallized transient moments of grace. These are images that wed sublime fantasy with tenacious realism.

Richard Avedon (1923-2004) received a Master of Photography Award from the International Century of Photography. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Washington, D.C.; Amon Carter Museum, Ft. Worth, Texas; and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, among many other museums and institutions worldwide. Throughout his career, Avedon produced and published books including In the American West (1985), Observations (1959), Nothing Personal (1964), Portraits (1976), and a fashion survey Photographs 1947–1977 (1978). His first museum retrospective was held at the Smithsonian Institution in 1962. Museum exhibitions during his lifetime included Minneapolis Institute of Arts (1970); “In the American West”, Amon Carter Museum (1985); “Richard Avedon: Evidence 1944-1994,” Whitney Museum of American Art (1994); and “Portraits” the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2002). Since his death, Avedon’s work has been the subject of a number of survey exhibitions, most recently “Avedon Fashion 1944-2000” at the International Center of Photography (2009).

For all other information please contact the gallery at geneva@gagosian.com or at +41.22.319.3619.

Vernissage: jeudi 29 septembre de 18h à 20h

Je suis arrivé à un moment où il n'y avait pas de jeunes photographes travaillant de manière libre. Tout le monde était fatigué, la guerre était finie, Dior rallongeait ses jupes, et soudain, tout est devenu amusant et léger. Historiquement, c’était un moment merveilleux pour commencer en tant que photographe de mode.
- - Richard Avedon

Tout au long d’une carrière qui s’est étendue sur presque 60 ans, Richard Avedon a révolutionné la photographie de mode et de portrait dans un extraordinaire ensemble d’oeuvres axées sur la beauté, le pouvoir, l'époque et l'identité. Travaillant sur un large éventail de sujets allant du reportage au portrait, à la mode, ou aux travaux commerciaux, il a modifié les frontières entre les nombreux genres de la photographie.

Gagosian Gallery est heureuse de présenter une exposition des premières photographies de mode de Richard Avedon, représentant des femmes habillées en haute couture assises aux terrasses de cafés, dans les boîtes de nuit et dans les rues du Paris d'après-guerre. Parues dans Harper’s Bazaar au sommet de son influence, les photographies d'Avedon ont été un élément fondamental dans le changement de la compréhension populaire de la mode. En effet, leur influence résonne encore dans les magazines de mode d'aujourd'hui.

Les photographies présentées dans cette exposition ont été choisies par Avedon en 1978 pour le portfolio Avedon/Paris, à la veille d'une exposition rétrospective de son travail de mode au Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ils dépeignent les beautés célèbres de la haute couture de l’époque, avec Marlene Dietrich en Dior, Dorian Leigh en Piguet, et Suzy Parker en Lanvin-Castillo. Ces photographies illustrent le style novateur d’Avedon au moment de sa première apogée créative: ses modèles sont remplies d'expression, sourient, rient, et posent en mouvement dans la ville des Lumières.

Avedon a commencé sa carrière professionnelle en 1942 comme photographe dans la marine marchande américaine. En 1945, il monte son propre studio et travail en tant que photographe indépendant pour divers magazines. Encadré par le célèbre graphiste Alexey Brodovitch et la légendaire rédactrice de mode Diana Vreeland, Avedon atteint rapidement le sommet de sa profession pour devenir le photographe de référence de Harper’s Bazaar. Il continuera à faire des photographies de mode et des portraits pour des magazines tout au long de sa carrière. Rompant les liens avec Harper’s Bazaar en 1965, il commence alors à travailler pour Vogue et ce jusqu'en 1988. Plus tard, il établira de formidables partenariats créatifs avec le périodique français Egoïste ainsi que The New Yorker, renouvellant son style au sein de leurs pages.

Les images de mode d'Avedon ne se sont jamais conformées à la norme dominante de mannequins posant sans émotion, éloignées de la caméra, et qui semblent dépourvues de personnalité. Au lieu de cela, il a mis ses modèles en mouvement, en les provoquant à apparaître curieuses, autoritaires, indisciplinées, rayonnantes, et vivantes. Conscient de la mélancolie inhérente à la nature éphémère d'une grande beauté, les photographies incisives d’Avedon ont cristallisées des moments transitoires de grâce. Ce sont des images qui marient une fantaisie sublime avec un réalisme tenace.

Richard Avedon (1923-2004) a obtenu le Prix de Master de Photographie de la International Century of Photography. Son travail est présent dans les collections du Museum of Modern Art et Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York, le Smithsonian National Museum of American History à Washington; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth au Texas, et le Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, parmi de nombreux autres musées et institutions dans le monde entier. Tout au long de sa carrière, Richard Avedon a réalisé et publié des livres dont In the American West (1985), Observations (1959), Nothing Personal (1964), Portraits (1976), et une retrospective de mode Photographs 1947-1977 (1978). Sa première rétrospective dans un musée a été tenue au Smithsonian Institution en 1962. Parmi les expositions ayant eu lieu de son vivant on peut citer Minneapolis Institute of Arts (1970); “In the American West”, Amon Carter Museum (1985); "Richard Avedon: Evidence 1944-1994", Whitney Museum of American Art (1994); et "Portraits" au Metropolitan Museum of Art (2002). Depuis sa mort, le travail d'Avedon a été l'objet d'un certain nombre d'expositions retrospectives, plus récemment, "Avedon Fashion 1944-2000” au l'International Center of Photography (2009).

Pour toute information vous pouvez contacter la galerie à geneva@gagosian.com ou au +41.22.319.3619.

Anselm Reyle - Meissen Debris Acropolis

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:54:34 EST

October 17 - December 16, 2011
Athens Gallery

[Scroll down for Greek version / Ελληνικά στο τέλος της σελίδας]

Opening reception for the artist: Monday, October 17th, from 6 to 9 pm

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Anselm Reyle.

Reyle finds inspiration in his immediate surroundings, from the typical Socialist architecture that dominates much of the landscape of post-war Germany to the flea-market finds signifying the growth of global capitalism. When making his art, he mines found objects from a profusion of cultural backgrounds; treating and displaying them equivalently and without further comment. By conflating all manners of extant social artifact with motifs from the annals of recent art history, he imbues them with new vitality and decorative allure, thus reinvigorating the dialogue about the role of modernism today.

For Athens, a modern city dominated by classical ruins, Reyle has created a series of specific works as a meditation on the fragment. Untitled white porcelain sculptures, displayed in velvet-lined vitrines, possess the aura and preciousness of museum objects. Closer scrutiny reveals that their parts are broken porcelain residues, salvaged and fused together into tenuous wholes. Produced at the historic Meissen porcelain factory in Germany, the pieces are double-fired in the manner of traditional handcrafted porcelain to produce a high luster. The purity of the porcelain finish, the sanctity of the display, and the traditional bourgeois connotations of the medium are at odds with forms created through the actions of accident and contingency.

Reyle provides background and context for these surprising new porcelain works with sculptures and paintings that are both typical and specific. Comprised of materials such as acrylics, glitter, mirrors, and collaged and painted metal objects, these techno monochromes abound with references to iconic abstractionists, from Kenneth Noland to Otto Freundlich. In Mystic Silver (2009) fragments of debris are metamorphosed with the application of holographic lacquer to create unprecedented abstract visual harmonies within a monochrome aesthetic, while the pearlescent, tactile White Earth pays homage both to the Achromes of Manzoni and the constructed monochromes of Klein.

Anselm Reyle was born in 1970 in Tübingen, Germany and lives and works in Berlin. His work is included in major international collections including Boros Collection, Berlin; DaimlerChrysler Collection, Germany; Rubell Family Collection, USA; and Francois Pinault Collection. Recent solo exhibitions include "Ars Nova", Kunsthalle Zurich (2006); "Licht und Farbe", Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany (2004); and "Acid Mothers Temple", Kunsthalle Tübingen, Germany (2009).

For further inquiries please contact Christina Papadopoulou at cpapa@gagosian.com or at +30.210.36.40.215.

Εγκαίνια : Δευτέρα, 17 του Οκτώβρη, από τις 6 έως τις 9 μ.μ.

Η Gagosian της Αθήνας παρουσιάζει την καινούρια δουλειά του Anselm Reyle.

Πηγή έμπνευσης του Reyle είναι το άμεσο περιβάλλον του, από τα χαρακτηριστικά δείγματα της σοσιαλιστικής αρχιτεκτονικής που κυριαρχεί σε ένα μεγάλο μέρος του τοπίου της μεταπολεμικής Γερμανίας, έως και τα αντικείμενα που πωλούνται στις ανοιχτές αγορές, τα οποία σηματοδοτούν την ανάπτυξη του παγκόσμιου καπιταλισμού. Για το έργο του αποθησαυρίζει αντικείμενα από ποικίλα πολιτισμικά περιβάλλοντα – τα οποία τα χρησιμοποιεί και τα εκθέτει χωρίς περαιτέρω σχολιασμό. Συνδυάζει κάθε είδους σύγχρονες τεχνικές με μοτίβα από την πρόσφατη ιστορίας της τέχνης, και τα εμποτίζει με φρέσκια ζωντάνια και γοητεία πυροδοτώντας εκ νέου τον διάλογο σχετικά με τον ρόλο του μοντερνισμού σήμερα.

Για την Αθήνα, μία σύγχρονη πόλη που σφύζει από αρχαιολογικά ευρήματα της κλασικής περιόδου, ο Reyle δημιούργησε μία σειρά από έργα στα οποία πραγματεύεται την έννοια του θραύσματος. Άτιτλα γλυπτά από λευκή πορσελάνη, τα οποία εκτίθενται μέσα σε προθήκες στρωμένες με βελούδο, αποκτούν την αίγλη και την αξία των μουσειακών εκθεμάτων. Μια πιο προσεκτική ματιά αποκαλύπτει ότι πρόκειται για θραύσματα από πορσελάνη, τα οποία έχουν περισυλλεγεί και ενοποιηθεί για να δημιουργήσουν λεπτεπίλεπτα σύνολα. Τα θραύσματα αυτά έχουν κατασκευαστεί στην ιστορική βιομηχανία πορσελάνης Meissen στη Γερμανία με την πολύπλοκη τεχνική επεξεργασία της παραδοσιακής χειροποίητης πορσελάνης ώστε να αποκτήσουν στιλπνότητα. Το εξαιρετικό φινίρισμα της πορσελάνης, ο καθαγιαστικός τρόπος με τον οποίον εκτίθενται τα έργα, και οι παραδοσιακές αναφορές του μέσου στην αστική τάξη έρχονται σε αντίστιξη με τις φόρμες που δημιουργούνται από πράξεις τυχαίες και απρόβλεπτες.

Τα εντυπωσιακά καινούρια έργα από πορσελάνη είναι μία μετεξέλιξη των χαρακτηριστικών γλυπτών και ζωγραφικών έργων του Reyle. Τα μονόχρωμα έργα του, κατασκευασμένα από ακρυλικά υλικά, glitter, καθρέφτες και μεταλλικά αντικείμενα που τα έχει συνθέσει σε κολάζ και τα έχει ζωγραφίσει, βρίθουν από αναφορές σε σημαντικούς καλλιτέχνες της αφαιρετικής τέχνης, από τον Kenneth Noland έως τον Otto Freundlich. Στο έργο του Mystic Silver (2009) διάφορα θραύσματα μεταμορφώνονται με τη βοήθεια ενός ειδικού βερνικιού για να δημιουργήσουν μία πρωτοφανή οπτική αρμονία με μονόχρωμη αισθητική, ενώ η ιριδίζουσα σειρά White Earth είναι μία αναφορά στα Achromes του Manzoni και στα μονόχρωμα έργα του Klein.

Ο Anselm Reyle γεννήθηκε στο Τούμπινγκεν της Γερμανίας το 1970. Ζει και εργάζεται στο Βερολίνο. Τα έργα του αποτελούν μέρος σημαντικών διεθνών συλλογών, μεταξύ των οποίων οι συλλογές Boros (Βερολίνο), DaimlerChrysler (Γερμανία), η συλλογή της οικογένειας Rubell (Η.Π.Α.), και η συλλογή Francois Pinault. Στις πρόσφατες ατομικές εκθέσεις του συμπεριλαμβάνονται η «Ars Nova» στην Kunsthalle της Ζυρίχης (2006), η «Licht und Farbe» στη Neuer Aachener Kunstverein στο Άαχεν της Γερμανίας (2004), και η «Acid Mothers Temple» στην Kunsthalle του Τούμπινγκεν (2009).

Για περαιτέρω πληροφορίες μπορείτε να επικοινωνήσετε με τη Christina Papadopoulou στο cpapa@gagosian.com η στο +1.30.210.36.40.215.

Για πληροφορίες Τύπου παρακαλούμε επικοινωνήστε με τον Φοίβο Σακαλή στην ηλεκτρονική διεύθυνση fivos@fivos-sakalis.gr ή στα τηλέφωνα +30.210.64.22.849 και +69.47.645.400.

Andreas Gursky

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:28:58 EST

November 4 - December 17, 2011
West 21st Street Gallery

Opening reception for the artist: Friday, November 4th, from 6 to 8 pm

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce a major exhibition by Andreas Gursky.

At the 21st Street gallery, Gursky will premiere Bangkok, a new series of large-scale works, in tandem with the majestic Oceans of 2010, which are being shown in New York for the first time.

Just as history painters of previous centuries found their subjects in the realities of everyday life, Gursky finds inspiration in his own spontaneous visual experience and through reports of global phenomena in the daily media. The resulting pictures have a formal congruence deriving from a bold and edgy dialogue between photography and painting, empirical observation and artfulness, conceptual rigor and spontaneity, representation and abstraction. Gursky’s world view fuses the flux of life and nature with the stillness of metaphysical reflection.

In the Oceans (2009-10), Gursky relinquished his position behind the camera to work with satellite images of the world as raw material, resulting in contemporary mappe del mondo on a scale befitting the cosmic grandeur of the subject. On a flight from Dubai to Melbourne, Australia, Gursky began watching the flight-path program. Suddenly he saw the graphic representation – which depicts the edges and tips of sharply delineated land masses with wide blue expanses of ocean between – as a picture. The ensuing process from diagram to large-scale photographic work proved to be very involved. He sourced high-definition satellite photographs augmented from the Internet but given that these photographs were limited to exposing the land masses only, he was obliged to generate totally by artificial means the oceans and liminal zones that dominate his own images. Thus, in the darkly nuanced surfaces of the Oceans – for which he even consulted shoal maps to obtain the appropriate visual veracity – Gursky reconciles the division between the machine eye and the human eye, continuing the debates and practices begun in the nineteenth century regarding photography and the issue of artistic expression versus objective science.

Neither empirical nor cartographic but rather determined by compositional principles, Gursky’s Oceans possess that sense of the “terrible” sublime associated with Romantic landscape painting and twentieth century abstraction. The singular image Antarctic – an anthropormorphic land mass as inscrutable and uninhabitable as the sea – acts as a coda to the series: under the portents of global warming the icy, barren continent seems to be raising an apocalyptic finger, despite the beauty in its details.

It was serendipity rather than intention that found Gursky, one year later, shooting the Chao Phraya that flows through Bangkok and empties into the Gulf of Thailand. Nevertheless, the relationship with the Oceans is clear: In the new Bangkok series, he moves in closer on his subject, capturing the details of the fast-flowing urban water mass through the lens of the abstract sublime. A major arterial waterway that is as compromised by manmade pollution as by disequilibrium in the natural hydrological regime, Chao Phraya is revealed by Gursky to be at once a dumping ground for all manner of manmade detritus (used condoms, a child’s bed mattress, a car tire), a crucible for ecological disorder (as evidenced by a dead fish and the pretty but devastating weed known as water hyacinth, floating in the water), and a reflecting, refracting surface for the modern city itself.

It is now common knowledge that ongoing natural disasters and human negligence compromise the well-being of the oceans and, thus, our own long-term existence. Add to this the recent alarm as rising flood waters in and around the Chao Phraya Basin threaten to prompt the next in a string of massive environmental catastrophes. In images that are as conceptually profound as they are formally dazzling, timeless and yet very much of their time, Gursky has touched a topical nerve in contemporary life, namely the impotence of humans in the face of increasing disequilibrium in the natural world that may once again render it uninhabitable.

A large-format, two-volume catalogue, containing sumptuous plates that document the Ocean series as well as selected earlier works and essays by distinguished art historians Norman Bryson and Werner Spies, was published by Gagosian Gallery in 2010 and is currently available.

Andreas Gursky was born in 1955 in Leipzig, former East Germany. He attended Folkwangschule, Essen (1978-81) and Staatliche Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf (1981-87). Recent major museum exhibitions include “Werke-Works 80-08”, Kunstmuseen Krefeld (2008, toured to Moderna Museet, Stockholm and Vancouver Art Gallery in 2009); Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2007); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2007, toured to Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Sharjah Art Museum, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and Ekaterina Foundation, Moscow in 2007-08); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2001, touring to Reina Sofia, Madrid, Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 2001-02). His work is included in important public and private collections throughout the world.

Gursky lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany.

For further press inquiries please contact Ali Wender at awender@gagosian.com or at +1.212.741.1111.

The Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:00:16 EST

November 3 - December 23, 2011
Madison Avenue Gallery

Opening reception: Thursday, November 3rd, from 6 to 8 pm

Gagosian Gallery, in collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, is proud to present “The Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg,” selections from Rauschenberg's personal art collection. This is the first time that Rauschenberg’s collection has been publicly presented and that an artist’s collection has been exhibited at the gallery. It follows the acclaimed introductory survey exhibition of Rauschenberg’s own work presented at Gagosian West 21st Street in 2010. Proceeds from the collection help fund the endowment established for the Foundation’s philanthropic activities.

An artist’s collection is a rare resource, charged with anecdotes of how and why and where works were acquired, as well as whether they represented epistemic interests, or they were used for reference in the creation of new works. This fascinating exhibition provides special insight into Rauschenberg’s broader inspirations as well as his friendships and affinities, the causes he supported, and his personal philanthropic initiatives.

A game-changing figure in post-war American art, Rauschenberg bridged all traditional boundaries between medium and genre and forever changed the relationship between artist, image, and viewer. He quickly identified as his driving energies and motivations the incidental, the immediate, and the perception of a presence greater than his own artistic virtuosity. Rauschenberg truly believed in the communicative and transformative potential of art and throughout his life he devoted his creative energies equally to artistic and philanthropic activities. In 1970 he founded Change, Inc. to assist artists financially in emergency situations, and in the 1980s he inaugurated ROCI (Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange), a pattern-breaking, collaborative, global exhibition project that forged entirely new artistic territory in international dialogue and peace-keeping. In 1990 he formed the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to benefit and promote awareness of the causes and groups close to his heart. Activities included educational art programs, environmental and humanitarian campaigns, as well as grants and direct assistance to artistic collaborations. Since Rauschenberg’s death in 2008, the Foundation is responsible for maintaining this legacy as well as the expansion of philanthropic activities consistent with his personal view that “Art can change the world.”

In addition to his philanthropic spirit and his championing of positive change, Rauschenberg was also acknowledged to be one of the most generous and inquisitive artists of his time, passionately engaged in, and supportive of, the art of others. Over a lifetime, he acquired through exchanges, gifts, and purchases, an astonishingly rich collection of artworks by seminal forbears (Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp, René Magritte, Edweard Muybridge); a wide circle of friends, including choreographers and composers (Trisha Brown, John Cage, John Chamberlain, Merce Cunningham, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Karl Heinz Stockhausen, Jean Tinguely, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Susan Weil); and younger colleagues (David Byrne, Robert Mapplethorpe, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha).

Some of these artworks—such as Duchamp’s Bottlerack (1960), Cage’s original scores, Marden’s Choice (1967), and Ruscha’s Romeo, With Contraceptive Ghost (1980), represent milestones in recent contemporary art history; others, such as Warhol’s Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg (1967), John Chamberlain’s jewel-like sculpture Homer (1960) and Trisha Brown’s vigorous notations are of a different order, intimate and highly personal, though no less potent. Whether masterpiece or token in the general order of things, Rauschenberg ascribed equal importance to all and this exhibition of the art with which he surrounded himself seeks to reflect the breadth, openness and sincerity of his vision.

A catalogue of selected works from the collection is currently being prepared by Gagosian Gallery and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Press Contact:
Meg Blackburn
FITZ & CO
T. +1.212.627.1455, ext. 225
E. meg@fitzandco.com

For all other information please contact the gallery at newyork@gagosian.com or at +1.212.744.2313.

Richard Serra - Junction / Cycle

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:12:19 EST

September 14 - November 26, 2011
West 24th Street Gallery

Opening reception for the artist: Wednesday, September 14th, from 6 to 8 pm

I consider space to be a material. The articulation of space has come to take precedence over other concerns. I attempt to use sculptural form to make space distinct.
– Richard Serra

Junction (2011)
13’ 11/2”x 75’ 1/2" x 49’ 15/16” (4 x 22.9 x 15.2 m), weatherproof steel

Cycle (2010)
14’ 1” x 57’ 6' 1/2” x 55’ 8” (4.3 x 17.5 x 17 m), weatherproof steel

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present Junction (2011) and Cycle (2010), two new sculptures by Richard Serra. Serra has pushed the unique sculptural syntax that he developed over the last fifteen years to arrive at entirely new forms in two of his most complex and challenging works to date.

Born in 1938, Richard Serra is one of the most significant artists of his generation. His groundbreaking bodies of work in both sculpture and drawing have been celebrated with major retrospectives at The Museum of Modern Art ("Richard Serra Sculpture Forty Years," 2007 and "Richard Serra/Sculpture," 1986) and the current "Richard Serra Drawings: A Retrospective" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which will travel this year to SFMOMA and the Menil Collection in Houston. He has produced large-scale, site-specific sculptures for architectural, urban and landscape settings spanning the globe, from Iceland to New Zealand. In addition to his 2008 MONUMENTA installation Promenade at the Grand Palais in Paris, Serra conceived The Matter of Time, an eight-part permanent installation at the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2005.

For further information please contact the gallery at newyork@gagosian.com or at +1.212.741.1111.

Howard Hodgkin

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:23:46 EST

November 3 - December 23, 2011
Madison Avenue Gallery

Opening reception for the artist: Thursday, November 3rd, from 6 to 8 pm

I don't think you can lightly paint a picture. It's an activity I take very seriously.
--Howard Hodgkin

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of recent paintings by Howard Hodgkin.

In Hodgkin’s paintings, abstraction and figuration are held in perfect tension. Assertive compressed gestures, sweeping complex textures, a lush palette, and the dynamic interchange of light and dark are all hallmarks of his distinctive signature. Embracing spontaneity and directness in equal measure to the processes of reflection and capitulation, it may take a year of preparation to execute a single and instantaneous brushstroke. Containing maximalist gestures and saturated colors expressed in the effects of the brush, the more intimately scaled paintings appear jewel-like, while larger works are sumptuous and theatrical. With their incorporated frames and painted wooden supports, they operate as both objects and images.

In each painting, Hodgkin’s subject is a presence that is sensed rather than apprehended, remaining resistant to interpretation, allusive, and fragmentary. Vibrant traces of experience inspired by everyday memories, places, and encounters are called by name in titles such as Breakfast (2010-11), In Egypt (2007-08), Opera (2003-11) and Knightsbridge (2009-11). By intimating the world beyond the confines of the frame, he creates works that are at once composed and autonomous wholes and synecdoches of the greater aesthetic reality that lies beyond their limits.

Howard Hodgkin was born in London in 1932 and attended Camberwell School of Art and the Bath Academy of Art, Corsham. His work is included in major public and private collections all over the world. Major museum exhibitions include “Paintings 1975-1995,” organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas (1995, opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, traveled the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Kunstverein of the Rhineland and Westphalia, Düsseldorf, and the Tate Modern, London in 1996); a major retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2006, traveled to Tate Britain and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid); “Paintings: 1992-2007,” Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (2007, traveled to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). Most recently, “Time and Place, 2001-2010,” opened at Modern Art Oxford in 2010, and traveled to De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, The Netherlands, and to San Diego Museum of Art in 2010-11.

For further information please contact the gallery at newyork@gagosian.com or at +1.212.744.2313.

Paul Noble - Welcome to Nobson

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:02:54 EST

November 10 - December 17, 2011
Britannia Street Gallery

Opening reception for the artist: Thursday, November 10th, from 6 to 8 pm

It was therefore decided to erect a civic monument on the roundabout at the outskirts of town. The monument is a large, vertical structure that spells out the friendly message “Welcome to Nobson.”
—Paul Noble

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present “Welcome to Nobson,” an exhibition of new drawings and sculpture by Paul Noble.

Noble’s intricate graphite drawings describe Nobson Newtown, a place composed of labyrinthine edifices and deserted topography embedded with modules of dense detail. Employing cavalier projection—a cartographical method characterized by a high viewpoint—Noble meticulously delineates a wealth of elaborate architecture and open urban spaces. These phantasmagorical landscapes allude to sources as diverse as ancient Chinese scrolls, Fabergé eggs, Henry Moore’s sculptures, and paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. The encrypted fictions of Nobson Newtown are dizzyingly complex—visual articulations of the tensions between disorder, perversion, and logical schema.

The immersive drawing Welcome to Nobson (2008–10) is the penultimate work in Noble’s expansive fifteen-year Nobson project, signifying the final stage of the related pictorial and textual narratives. Just as this monumental drawing maps the passage into the world of Nobson Newtown, two towering marble sculptures, Couple (2011) and Three (2011), act as sentries that mark an entrance to the exhibition. Transcending their base connotations, these biomorphic forms serve as three-dimensional counterparts to the characters and monuments depicted in smaller drawings such as Ah (2010) and Walled Garden (2009).

The motifs illustrated in these works on paper also relate to details within Welcome to Nobson. The sturdy rectilinear brick walls of Heaven (2009), the delicate ornamental fencing in Hell (2009) and the confounding maze This Way (2010–11) are all isolated and magnified from the vast park of fantastical monuments and features in the principal drawing. References between and tautological cohesion within the epic cross-medium series underpins Noble’s concept of Nobson Newtown as its own autonomous sphere of reality.

Paul Noble (b. 1963, Dilston, Northumberland) studied at Sunderland Polytechnic and Humberside College of Higher Education. He was one of five founding members of City Racing, an influential artists’ space in London (1988–98), where he showed in 1990. Noble’s work has since been exhibited in London at Cubitt Gallery (1995), Chisenhale Gallery (1998), Tate Gallery (1999), and Whitechapel Art Gallery (2004). He has also exhibited internationally at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (2003); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2005); Migros Museum, Zurich (2005); and Gagosian Gallery, New York (2007).

Noble lives and works in east London.

For further information please contact the gallery at london@gagosian.com or at +44.207.841.9960.

William Eggleston - Election Eve

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:21:07 EST

November 9 - December 23, 2011
Paris Gallery

[Scroll down for French version / Veuillez trouver ci-dessous la version française]

Opening reception: Tuesday, November 8th, from 6 to 8 pm

I am at war with the obvious.
—William Eggleston

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce the representation of William Eggleston in Los Angeles with an exhibition of photographs selected from the Election Eve series of 1976. These photographs have never been editioned.

Eggleston’s unique ability to conflate the epic and the everyday has made him one of the most impactful figures in late twentieth century photography. A native Southerner, Eggleston first began photographing his local environment in the 1950s, experimenting with black-and-white photography. Seeking to record his observations in a more heightened and accurate way, he began to use color technology in the late 1960s, a medium that at the time was confined largely to commercial uses. Through the use of the dye-transfer color-printing process, he was able to achieve the strikingly vivid, saturated color that became one of the hallmarks of his oeuvre.

Eggleston is largely credited with legitimizing color photography as a fine art form, as well as pioneering a style that derives its power from a refined form of spontaneous observation. In landscapes, cityscapes, street scenes, roadside scenes, at every sort of public converging point, both in long view and arrest close-up, he sets forth the elements, events, and personalities of an ordinary world. His subject matter, such as the interiors of motel rooms and abandoned storefronts, are seemingly situational, based on everyday observations. Yet his eccentric compositional structure creates a world of intangible mystery and unexpected beauty which, however strange and uncanny, is unquestionable in its veracity.

Eggleston’s Election Eve photographs were taken prior to the 1976 presidential election in Plains, Georgia, the rural seat of presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, and along the road from Memphis, Tennessee. They present as captured moments of tranquility in a specific time and place, the calm before the storm of political change. Largely empty spaces, as in Untitled (pole with shed) (1976), Untitled (yellow café) (1976) and Untitled (Dino gas pump) (1976), resonate with memory and optimistic potential. Embracing both the suggestive and the banal, Untitled (‘Jimmy Carter’ bumper) (1976) centers on a dusty, vacant parking lot and a bumper sticker that announces the national expectation that hung over Sumter County that day. In Untitled (porch/vases/foot) (1976) and Untitled (road with yellow lines) (1976), scenes of dirt roads, wooden porches and rolling farmland convey a true-to-life portrait of a small country town, devoid of the stylization so omnipresent in media coverage. The freedom and congeniality conveyed by the loosely framed portraits are hallmarks of Eggleston’s working style, the result of a steadfastly democratic vision and a poetic eye.

William Eggleston was born in 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee and raised in Sumner, Mississippi. He studied at Vanderbilt University, Delta State College and the University of Mississippi. His work has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide including “William Eggleston and the Color Tradition,” the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (1999); “William Eggleston,” Foundation Cartier, Paris (2001, traveled to Hayward Gallery, London); Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002); “William Eggleston: Los Alamos,” Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2002, traveled to Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Serravles, Portugal; National Museum for Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway; Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; Albertina, Vienna, Austria; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX through 2005); and “William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video 1961-2008,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2008, traveled to the Haus de Kunst, Munich; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC; and the Art Institute of Chicago through 2010).

Press Enquiries
Claudine Colin Communication
Contact: Dorelia Baird-Smith
28 rue de Sévigné
75004 Paris
E. dorelia@claudinecolin.com
T. +33.1.42.72.60.01
WWW.CLAUDINECOLIN.COM

For all other information please contact the gallery at paris@gagosian.com or at +33.1.75.00.05.92.

Vernissage d l’exposition: Mardi, 8 novembre, de 18 à 20h

Gagosian Gallery est heureuse d’annoncer la représentation de William Eggleston à Los Angeles avec une exposition de photographies issues de la série Election Eve, datant de 1976. Ces photographies n’ont jamais fait l’objet d’éditions auparavant.

L’aptitude unique d’Eggleston à réunir l’épique et le quotidien, a fait de lui une des figures les plus importantes de la photographie de la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle. Natif du Sud des Etats-Unis, Eggleston a fait ses premiers pas en photographie, dans les années 1950, en photographiant en noir et blanc son environnement immédiat. Recherchant à immortaliser ses observations d’une façon plus fidèle et plus rehaussée, il a commencé à avoir recours à la photographie en couleur à la fin des années 1960, un medium qui, à cette époque faisait uniquement l’objet de campagnes de publicité. Grâce à la technique du dye-transfer en impression couleur, Eggleston a atteint le vif éclatant, une couleur saturée devenue une des marques de fabrique de son œuvre.

On a souvent attribué à Eggleston la légitimation de la photographie en couleur en tant que forme d’art à proprement parler; mais aussi d’avoir été le pionnier d’un style dont le pouvoir résulte d’observations spontanées dans une forme très raffinée. Dans ses paysages ou décors urbains, des scènes de rues ou scènes au bord de la route; à chaque point de rassemblement public, que ce soit à distance ou en un gros-plan, il expose les éléments, les événements et les personnalités d’un monde ordinaire. Les thèmes choisis, comme l’intérieur des chambres de motels, les devantures de magasin abandonnées, sont apparemment en situation, fondées sur des observations de tous les jours. Cependant, ces structures composées de manière originale, créent un monde de mystère intangible et d’une beauté inattendue qui, bien qu’étrange et déroutant, est indubitablement d’une grande véracité.

Les photographies de la série Election Eve de William Eggleston, ont été réalisées avant l’élection présidentielle de 1976 à Plains, en Géorgie, le siège rural du candidat à la présidence Jimmy Carter; et le long de la route de Memphis, dans le Tennessee. Saisissant des moments de tranquillité à des moments et des endroits spécifiques, ces photographies annoncent le calme avant la tempête du changement politique. Dans Untitled (pole with shed) (1976), Untitled (yellow café) (1976) et Untitled (Dino gas pump) (1976), de grands espaces vides évoquent la mémoire et un optimisme latent. Epousant à la fois le suggestif et le banal, la photographie Untitled (‘Jimmy Carter’ bumper) (1976) attire notre attention sur un parking vide et poussiéreux et sur un autocollant pour pare-chocs qui évoquent l’attente nationale qui planait sur Sumter County ce jour là. Dans Untitled (porch/vases/foot) (1976) et Untitled (road with yellow lines) (1976), les scènes de chemins de terre, les porches en bois et les fermes agricoles tentaculaires transmettent un portrait réaliste d’une petite ville de comté, dénuée de la stylisation particulièrement omniprésente dans les médias. La liberté et la sympathie communiquées par ces portraits cadrés librement sont le sceau du travail d’Eggleston, le résultat d’une vision résolument démocratique et d’un œil poétique.

William Eggleston est né en 1939 à Memphis, dans le Tennessee; il a grandi à Sumner dans le Mississipi. Il a étudié à l’université de Vanderbilt, au Delta State College et à l’Université du Mississipi. Son travail a fait l’objet de nombreuses expositions solo et d’expositions de groupe à travers le monde parmi lesquelles on compte «William Eggleston and the Color Tradition», J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (1999), «William Eggleston», Fondation Cartier, Paris (2001, exposé ensuite à la Hayward Gallery, à Londres), Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002), «William Eggleston: Los Alamos», Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2002, ensuite exposée au Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Serravles au Portugal; au National Museum for Contempary Art d’Oslo en Norvège; au Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebaek au Danemark; au Musee Albertina de Vienne en Autriche; au San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, à San Francisco, en Californie et au Dallas Museum of Art, Texas en 2005), et «William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video 1961-2008», Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2008 (exposé ensuite au Haus de Kunst à Munich; à la Corcoran Gallery de Washington D.C. et à l’Art Institute de Chicago en 2010).

Contact Presse
Claudine Colin Communication
Contact: Dorelia Baird-Smith
28 rue de Sévigné
75004 Paris
E. dorelia@claudinecolin.com
T. +33.1.42.72.60.01
WWW.CLAUDINECOLIN.COM

Pour toute information supplémentaire, merci de contacter la galerie au paris@gagosian.com ou au +33.1.75.00.05.92.

Manzoni - Azimut

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 02:07:19 EST

November 17, 2011 - January 6, 2012
Davies Street Gallery

[Scroll down for Italian version / Testo in italiano al termine della versione in inglese]

Opening reception: Wednesday, November 16th, from 6 to 8 pm

Following the acclaimed exhibition "Manzoni: A Retrospective" in New York in 2009, Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present "Manzoni: Azimut" at the Davies Street gallery in London. Organized in cooperation with the Fondazione Piero Manzoni, the exhibition celebrates the work of Manzoni and fellow artists during the brief life of the Azimut gallery in Milan from 1959 to 1960.

On December 4, 1959, Azimut opened in the sub-basement of a furniture store on a narrow street around the corner from La Scala in Milan with an exhibition of Manzoni´s most radical work to date: Linee (Lines), drawings of a single line on a length of paper, signed, rolled up and sealed in a cardboard tube, which he then labeled. A youthful, experimental exhibition space that lasted just eight months, Azimut presented thirteen exhibitions and became a nerve center for an international set of provocative young artists. The founding of the gallery by Manzoni and Enrico Castellani, with the help of their mentor Lucio Fontana, followed their collaboration on Azimuth, a journal dedicated to the "development of the newest and youngest avantgarde painting." Featuring works by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Heinz Mack, Jean Tinguely, and Yves Klein, Azimuth´s two issues stand as essential documents of a radical “new conception” of art at the end of the 1950s.

The exhibition "Manzoni: Azimut" brings together pivotal examples of Manzoni´s cycles Achromes, Linee, Uova Scultura (Egg Sculptures) and Corpi d´Aria (Bodies of Air) with early experimental canvases by his friends and collaborators in the Azimut project Enrico Castellani, Agostino Bonalumi, Dadamaino, and their guide Lucio Fontana. It is accompanied by a comprehensive publication by art historian Francesca Pola that tells the story of the Azimut/Azimuth project and includes facsimiles of the journal, with new English translations.

Piero Manzoni was born in Soncino, Italy, in 1933 and died in Milan in 1963. His brief career was one of the most radically inventive of the twentieth century, producing a body of work that continues to challenge the definitions of artistic sovereignty and virtuosity. His work is represented in public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris and Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Roma; and Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin. It has been the subject of numerous international exhibitions, including retrospectives at the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris (1991), Herning Kunstmuseum (1991), Castello di Rivoli, Turin (1992), Serpentine Gallery, Palazzo Reale (1997), London (1998), and MADRE, Naples (2007). The 2009 Gagosian Gallery exhibition, curated by Germano Celant, was the first comprehensive U.S. retrospective of Manzoni’s work.

For further information please contact the gallery at london@gagosian.com or at +44.207.841.9960.

Inaugurazione: Mercoledì, 16 novembre, dalle ore 18 alle 20

Dopo lo straordinario successo della mostra “Manzoni: A Retrospective” presentata a New York nel 2009, Gagosian Gallery è lieta di annunciare la mostra “Manzoni: Azimut” presso lo spazio espositivo di Davies Street, Londra. Con la partecipazione della Fondazione Piero Manzoni, la mostra celebra il lavoro svolto da Manzoni e da alcuni artisti che con lui hanno condiviso l’esperienza della galleria Azimut a Milano, tra il1959 al 1960.

Inaugurata il 4 dicembre 1959 nel seminterrato di un negozio di mobili a pochi passi dal teatro La Scala di Milano, Azimut ha aperto con una mostra di Linee di Manzoni, ritenute i lavori più radicali dell’artista fino ad allora: opere composte da una singola linea tracciata su una lunga striscia di carta, arrotolata, firmata, e poi posta all’interno di un cilindro di cartone etichettato dall’artista.

Spazio espositivo sperimentale e di nuova generazione, in soli otto mesi di vita Azimut ha presentato ben tredici mostre, trasformandosi presto in un importante punto di riferimento per molti giovani e innovativi artisti internazionali. Fondata da Manzoni ed Enrico Castellani con l’aiuto del loro mentore Lucio Fontana, la galleria è stata il seguito della loro collaborazione in Azimuth, rivista dedicata alla valorizzazione della più giovane pittura della nuova avanguardia. Con riprodotte opere di Robert Rauschenberg, Heinz Mack, Jean Tinguely, Yves Klein e altri, i due numeri di Azimuth rappresentano una testimonianza cruciale della nascita di una “nuova concezione artistica” radicale, alla fine degli anni cinquanta.

La mostra “Manzoni: Azimut” presenta esempi fondamentali dei cicli creativi dell’artista, riunendo Achrome, Linee, Uova scultura e Corpi d’Aria, insieme ad alcuni dipinti sperimentali di amici e collaboratori del progetto Azimut: Enrico Castellani, Agostino Bonalumi, Dadamaino, e la loro guida Lucio Fontana. La mostra sarà corredata da una importante ed estesa pubblicazione dalla storica dell’arte Francesca Pola, che ricostruisce le vicende del progetto Azimuth/Azimut e include il facsimile della rivista originale con inedite traduzioni inglesi dei testi.

Piero Manzoni nasce a Soncino nel 1933 e muore a Milano nel 1963. La sua breve carriera è stata una delle più radicalmente innovative del ventesimo secolo, grazie a un corpus di opere che tutt’oggi sfida le definzioni di autorialità e virtuosismo artistico. Le sue opere sono presenti in importanti collezioni pubbliche, tra cui Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Modern, Londra; Centre Pompidou, Parigi; Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Roma, e Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Torino.
L’opera di Manzoni è stata inoltre protagonista di numerose mostre internazionali, tra le quali si annoveranno le antologiche al Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (Parigi, 1991); Castello di Rivoli (Torino, 1992); Palazzo Reale (Milano, 1997); Serpentine Gallery (Londra, 1998) e MADRE (Napoli, 2007). La mostra presentata alla Gagosian Gallery di New York nel 2009, a cura di Germano Celant, è stata la prima esauriente retrospettiva dell’opera di Manzoni negli Stati Uniti.

Per tutte le altre informazioni si prega di contattare la galleria di Davies Street a +44.207.841.9960 o london@gagosian.com

Adam McEwen - 11.11.11

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:27:05 EST

November 11 - December 23, 2011
Beverly Hills Gallery

Opening reception for the artist: Friday, November 11th, from 6 to 8 pm

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition “11.11.11” by Adam McEwen, his first in Los Angeles.

The numerical and graphic symmetry of the title gives an epochal feel to this major exhibition by McEwen, which makes explicit the interrelationships between individual works and persistent themes in his oeuvre via a specifically devised scenography. Wall-size grids of black-and-white photographic wallpaper—from the firestorming of Dresden, to McEwen dressed up as Bomber Harris (the British air commander who perfected the technique of carpet-bombing German cities during WWII), and gum-spattered New York sidewalks—line several galleries, drawing an analogy between planned destruction and urban desecration. They provide backdrops for droll “gum” paintings and impassive, machined graphite “paintings” that recall Minimalist compositions but which are, in fact, modeled on the figured, non-slip metal doors inset into New York sidewalks.

In 1994, McEwen made a drawing of a block, labeling it BLOCK OF GRAPHITE. But it was not until 2007 that, fascinated by the possibilities of this common but often unrecognized material, he began producing via industrial machining finely carved graphite sculptures that mimic real objects. In this exhibition, precise representations of everyday items—a water cooler, a roll gate, a safe—animate the galleries with their eerie reticence, a series of simulacra perfectly and perversely rendered in what is, in reality, dark, light-absorbing, compressed carbon. (The dust from the graphite industry is sold on to pencil companies.)

In a reverse Midas-effect, McEwen has answered to the shimmering claims of Minimalist art by creating contemporary work that is freighted with the leaden melancholy of modern history. As a meditation on the many lives and deaths of art, he has created a space that conflates a beleaguered present with the afterlife of a potent and contentious moment in art history, in much the same way as his obituaries narrate the future-perfect of the rich, the famous, the beautiful, and the notorious. McEwen’s dead zone of dark relics and faded memories confronts us, literally and metaphysically, with the filthy lucre of our past and present.

Adam McEwen’s work has been included in numerous group shows including “Haunted,” the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); “Beg, Borrow and Steal,” Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2009); “The Reach of Realism,” MoCA Miami (2009); “Into Me/Out of Me,” PS1 / MOMA, New York; and the 2006 Whitney Biennial. He curated “Fresh Hell” at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, as the 2010 edition of the Carte Blanche series.

For further inquiries please contact Alexandra Magnuson at amagnuson@gagosian.com or at +310.271.9400.

Roy Lichtenstein - Landscapes in the Chinese Style

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:08:38 EST

November 12 - December 22, 2011
Hong Kong Gallery

Opening reception: Saturday, November 12th, from 6 to 8 pm

I think (the Chinese landscapes) impress people with having somewhat the same kind of mystery (historical) Chinese paintings have, but in my mind it's a sort of pseudo-contemplative or mechanical subtlety...I'm not seriously doing a kind of Zen-like salute to the beauty of nature. It's really supposed to look like a printed version.
--Roy Lichtenstein

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein’s Landscapes in the Chinese Style.

Although Lichtenstein will always be synonymous with Pop Art, he continued to make inventive new work for almost three decades beyond the 1960s, during which he had become famous for his distinctive use of popular cartoon images and commercial painting style. An engagement with the work of other artists and cultures is a defining trait of Lichtenstein’s oeuvre. He constantly mined antecedent imagery and took inspiration from a diverse array of sources, from comic strips and advertising slogans to classical architecture and the art of the European Modernists. Beginning in the 1940s, he turned to art-historical styles and in the 1970s he employed them once again as well as quoting his own works – for example, rendering his subject in a way that conflated Expressionist or Cubist style with his own signature method of painting.

Seizing on traditional Chinese painting, in particular from the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), Lichtenstein garnered inspiration on how to craft the delicate, ethereal atmosphere so implicit to Landscapes in the Chinese Style from the monochromatic prints of Edgar Degas featured in a 1994 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. He was struck by Degas’ ability to suggest the features of a landscape with just a few strategic swathes of gray, thus allowing an unformed, nebulous shape to stand for exacting form. Lichtenstein also visited exhibitions of East Asian Art in New York, Washington and Boston, and perused exhibition catalogues--which may partly account for the emphasis on the secondary nature of his source imagery, deriving from reproductions of original works rather than from the works themselves.

Lichtenstein re-interpreted the traditional scenes and motifs using his own established methods and materials. Carefully stylized, Landscapes in the Chinese Style are formed with simulated Benday dots and block contours, rendered in hard, vivid color, with all traces of the hand removed. Consistent with his entire oeuvre, Landscapes in the Chinese Style play with American stereotypes and clichés by incorporating the elements of Asian culture most familiar to Western viewers-- a crooked bonsai tree in Landscape with Fog (1996), a pointed coolie hat in Landscape with Boats (study) (1995). However, the overt irony of his earlier Pop works cedes to aestheticism and formal delicacy: the Benday dots do not mimic the arbitrary techniques of commercial illustration, but rather appear in cloud-like patches that express the effervescence of space and form, as in the dreamy, abstract Landscape with Boat (1996). Sublimating the intrinsic serenity of his source material, Lichtenstein reflects on the harmony and balance of the ancient works through his unmistakable and edgy lexicon of modern visual effects.

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition, featuring essays by Karen Bandlow-Bata and Carol Yinghua Lu.

Roy Lichtenstein was born in 1923 in New York, where he died in 1997. His work has been exhibited extensively worldwide. Recent retrospective surveys include "All About Art," Louisiana Museum, Humelbaek (2003, traveled to the Hayward Gallery, London, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through 2005); and "Classic of the New", Kunsthaus Bregenz (2005),"Roy Lichtenstein: Meditations on Art" Museo Triennale, Milan (2010, traveled to the Ludwig Museum, Cologne). A major retrospective co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and Tate Modern, London is planned for 2012.

For further information please contact the gallery at hongkong@gagosian.com or at +852.2151.0555.

Richard Serra - Drawings

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:18:07 EST

November 23, 2011 - January 7, 2012
Paris Gallery

[Scroll down for French version / Veuillez trouver ci-dessous la version française]

Opening reception: Tuesday, November 22nd, from 6 to 8 pm

Drawing provides a space, a place for me to go to where I can concentrate on an activity that is satisfying in and of itself.
—Richard Serra

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present “Drawings,” an exhibition introducing two new series of work by Richard Serra, July and Rifts. This is his first major drawing exhibition in Paris since 1995.

Richard Serra was born in San Francisco in 1938. His groundbreaking bodies of work in both sculpture and drawing have been celebrated with major retrospectives at The Museum of Modern Art, “Richard Serra Sculpture Forty Years,” (2007) and “Richard Serra/Sculpture,” (1986). “Richard Serra Drawings: Work Comes Out of Work” was presented at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in 2008. He has produced large-scale, site-specific sculptures for architectural, urban and landscape settings spanning the globe, from Iceland to New Zealand. In addition to the eight-part permanent installation The Matter of Time, conceived for the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2005, Serra presented Promenade for MONUMENTA at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2008. “Richard Serra Drawings: A Retrospective” opened at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2010, and is currently on view at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It will travel to The Menil Collection, Houston in 2012.

Press Enquiries
Claudine Colin Communication
Contact: Dorelia Baird-Smith
28 rue de Sévigné
75004 Paris
E. dorelia@claudinecolin.com
T. +33.1.42.72.60.01
WWW.CLAUDINECOLIN.COM

For all other information please contact the gallery at paris@gagosian.com or at +33.1.75.00.05.92.

Vernissage de l’exposition: mardi, 22 novembre, de 18 à 20h

«Le dessin crée un espace, un endroit qui me permet de me concentrer sur une activité satisfaisante en elle-même»
—Richard Serra

Gagosian Gallery est heureuse de présenter «Drawings», première exposition majeure à Paris de dessins de Richard Serra depuis 1995. À cette occasion, deux nouvelles séries d’œuvres, July et Rifts seront exposées.

Richard Serra est né à San Francisco en 1938. Ses travaux d’avant-garde, en sculpture et en dessin, ont été célébrés lors de nombreuses rétrospectives à travers le monde, au MoMA de New York en 2007 avec l’exposition «Richard Serra Sculpture Forty Years», et en 1986 «Richard Serra/Sculpture». En 2008, «Richard Serra Drawings: Work Comes Out of Work» fut présenté au Kunsthaus de Bregenz.

Richard Serra a également réalisé dans le monde entier, de l’Islande à la Nouvelle-Zélande, des sculptures monumentales conçues spécifiquement en milieu urbain pour des musées et sites patrimoniaux mais également en pleine nature. En 2005, il crée «The Matter of Time», installation permanente composée de huit parties et conçue pour le Guggenheim de Bilbao. Trois ans plus tard, il présente à Paris dans le cadre de Monumenta au Grand Palais, «Promenade».

La grande rétrospective de dessins de l’artiste «Richard Serra Drawings: A Retrospective» présentée en 2010 au Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York, est actuellement exposée au San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. L’exposition voyagera ensuite en 2012 à la Menil Collection, à Houston.

Contact Presse
Claudine Colin Communication
Contact: Dorelia Baird-Smith
28 rue de Sévigné
75004 Paris
E. dorelia@claudinecolin.com
T. +33.1.42.72.60.01
WWW.CLAUDINECOLIN.COM

Pour toute information supplémentaire, merci de contacter la galerie au paris@gagosian.com ou au +33.1.75.00.05.92.

Cecily Brown

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:40:51 EST

November 18 - December 31, 2011
Rome Gallery

[Scroll down for Italian version / Testo in italiano al termine della versione in inglese]

Opening reception for the artist: Friday, November 18th, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Cecily Brown.

Presenting a world that pulses with excesses and appetites, Brown explores the breadth of human experience in tactile oil paintings. Broadly inspired by the history of painting—from Rubens and Veronese to the muscular expressionism of Willem de Kooning—Brown’s personal vision transcends classical notions of genre and narrative, freeing subject matter from its original context and positioning it within a new aesthetic reality.

Submerged within vigorous gestural abstractions are scenes in which tangles of flesh dissolve into sensuous textures. In the dense scenario of The Green, Green Grass of Home (2010) flickering figures are enfolded in vivid landscapes of lilac, charcoal, and burnt orange. In The Haunter (2010) a yawning orifice opens up in a sea of deliquescent color that is smeared and wiped across the support. In Handsome Stranger (2010) and Wake, Awake for Night is Flying (2010) anatomical silhouettes—the ball of a foot, the crook of an elbow— can just be made out. Eschewing fixed meaning, Brown’s paintings reflect the flux of life through fragmentary glimpses of form.

Cecily Brown was born in London in 1969. Her work is included in public collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Tate Gallery, London. Solo exhibitions include “Directions: Cecily Brown,” Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2002); MACRO, Rome (2003); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2004); Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (2005); Kunsthalle Mannheim (2005–06); Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (2006); The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2006–07); and Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2009). Her most recent exhibition, “Based on a True Story,” traveled to GEM, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hague, and Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover in 2010. Brown lives and works in New York.

Press Enquiries
Francesca Martinotti
E. martinotti@lagenziarisorse.it
T. +39.06.9784.8570
www.francescamartinotti.com

For all other information please contact the gallery at +39.06.4208.6498 or at roma@gagosian.com.

Inaugurazione alla presenza dell’artista: venerdì, 18 novembre, dalle ore 18 alle 20

Gagosian Gallery è lieta di annunciare una mostra di nuovi dipinti di Cecily Brown.

I tattili dipinti di Brown indagano la sfera dell’esperienza umana, presentando un mondo che freme di eccessi e voracità. Ispirandosi ampiamente alla storia della pittura—da Rubens e Veronese al vigoroso espressionismo di Willem de Kooning—l’artista costruisce una visione personale che trascende le nozioni tradizionali di genere e narrativa, svincolando così il soggetto delle sue opere dal loro contesto originale e collocandolo in una nuova realtà estetica.

All’interno di questi dipinti, caratterizzati da una forte gestualità astratta, si intravedono, come sommerse, scene di corpi attorcigliati dissolte in voluttuose pennellate: nel fitto scenario di The Green, Green Grass of Home (2010), vividi paesaggi color lilla, grigio e arancione scuro avvolgono figure tremolanti. In The Haunter (2010), da un profondo foro emerge un’esplosione di colore vischioso, steso fino ad invadere i bordi della tela. In Handsome Stranger (2010) e Wake, Awake for Night is Flying (2010), sagome anatomiche—come la punta di un piede, la piega di un gomito—si percepiscono appena. Sfuggendo a prefissati significati, i dipinti di Brown rispecchiano il flusso della vita attraverso scorci frammentari di forma e struttura.

Cecily Brown è nata a Londra nel 1969. Le sue opere sono presenti in note collezioni pubbliche, tra cui Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, e Tate Gallery, Londra. Tra le importanti mostre personali dell’artista si annoverano “Directions: Cecily Brown,” Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2002); MACRO, Roma (2003); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2004); Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (2005); Kunsthalle Mannheim (2005–06); Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (2006); The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2006–07); e Deichtorhallen, Amburgo (2009). La sua ultima mostra, “Based on a True Story”, è stata presentata al GEM, Museum of Contemporary Art, L’Aia, e poi esposta al Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover nel 2010. Brown vive e lavora a New York.

Ufficio Stampa
Francesca Martinotti
E. martinotti@lagenziarisorse.it
T. +39.06.9784.8570
www.francescamartinotti.com

Per tutte le altre informazioni si prega di contattare Gagosian Gallery Roma +39.06.4208.6498 o roma@gagosian.com.