Fairs & Collecting
galleryplatform.la
Robert Therrien
August 5–18, 2021
I see my work as fairly self-contained, almost circular. If you tried to graph it in a linear way, it wouldn’t work. There are too many references going backwards. The work is a little like a spiral because a spiral goes forward and then circles back on itself, then passes itself again.
—Robert Therrien
Gagosian is pleased to present seven works on paper by Robert Therrien (1947–2019) for galleryplatform.la. In addition to sculptures and photographs, Therrien produced an extensive body of work on paper, which conveys a similar fantastical wit. Made using bleach, dye, customized stencils, and other mediums, these delicate drawings, prints, and mixed-media works often incorporate macabre motifs such as gallows and black clouds, suggesting a fascination with folklore beyond the elusive magical potential of ordinary things.
Robert Therrien, No title (drowning or diving girl), 2009 © Robert Therrien/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Joshua White
Light and Lightning: Wonder-Reactions at Walter De Maria's The Lightning Field
In this second installment of a two-part essay, John Elderfield resumes his investigation of Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field (1977), focusing this time on how the hope to see lightning there has led to the work’s association with the Romantic conception of the sublime.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2021
The Summer 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Carrie Mae Weems’s The Louvre (2006) on its cover.
Fashion & Art: Valentino Des Ateliers
Author and curator Gianluigi Ricuperati speaks to the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier about his curatorial involvement in Valentino Des Ateliers, a collaborative project devised by Valentino’s creative director, Pierpaolo Piccioli, in partnership with Ricuperati. Working in a symbiotic manner, Piccioli and the Valentino Haute Couture team engaged in a dialogue with artists Joel S. Allen, Anastasia Bay, Benni Bosetto, Katrin Bremermann, Guglielmo Castelli, Maurizio Cilli, Danilo Correale, Luca Coser, Jamie Nares, Francis Offman, Andrea Respino, Wu Rui, Sofia Silva, Alessandro Teoldi, Patricia Treib, and Malte Zenses, along with the participation of Kerstin Bratsch, to arrive at a singular couture collection.
Shortlist
Mixtape: Spencer Sweeney
Spencer Sweeney shares a selection of songs that have punctuated his journey through the pandemic and ponders the expressive powers of a playlist.
The New York Public Library’s Picture Collection
Joshua Chuang, the Robert B. Menschel Senior Curator of Photography at the New York Public Library, discusses the institution’s singular Picture Collection, the artist Taryn Simon’s rigorous engagement with it, and four instances of its little-known role in the history of art making.
Conclusions Never Reached: Nancy Rubins in Fluid Space
Sara Softness reflects on a new series of sculptures by Nancy Rubins, Fluid Space (2019–21), “visual poems” that hint at the invisible and the unknown.
Social Works: The Archives of Frankie Knuckles Organized by Theaster Gates
Theaster Gates, steward of the Frankie Knuckles record collection, is engaging with the late DJ and musician’s archive of records, ephemera, and personal effects. For the Quarterly’s “Social Works” supplement, guest edited by Antwaun Sargent, Gates presents a selection of Knuckles’s personal record collection. Chantala Kommanivanh, a Chicago-based artist, educator, and musician—and the records manager for Rebuild Foundation, Chicago—provides annotations, contextualizing these records’ importance and unique qualities. Ron Trent, a dear friend of Knuckles’s, speaks to the legacy evinced by these materials.
Tatiana Trouvé: From March to May
A portfolio of the artist’s drawings made during lockdown. Text by Jesi Khadivi.
In Conversation
Taryn Simon and Teju Cole
This spring, as part of the Lambert Family Lecture Series at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Taryn Simon joined Teju Cole for an online conversation about her artistic practice and creative process.
Social Works: Carrie Mae Weems and Maya Phillips
A pairing of photography and poetry from “Social Works,” a supplement guest edited by Antwaun Sargent for the Summer 2021 issue of the Quarterly.
Gregory Corso: A Most Dangerous Art
On the occasion of the forthcoming publication of The Golden Dot: Last Poems by Gregory Corso, Raymond Foye reflects on the poet’s enduring engagement with the human condition and explores the unique structure of this final collection.
Dennis Hopper’s Taos Ride
Douglas Dreishpoon reflects on speaking with Hopper at the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, New Mexico, in 2009.
Events & Announcements
Exhibition
Harmony Korine
Wormburner
August 3–September 7, 2021
The Bridge, Bridgehampton, New York
This exhibition features new paintings by Harmony Korine depicting American presidents in the act of playing golf, a strangely quintessential presidential activity. Each painting is sourced from an archival photograph, which Korine repaints, either in black and white or full color, thereby transforming the original expressions and gestures into almost exaggerated versions of themselves. He then adds ribbons of color that dance across each composition with childlike irreverence, enhancing the paintings’ tragicomic impression while adding a tinge of absurdity. To schedule your visit, contact thebridge@gagosian.com.
Harmony Korine, 37, 2019–21 © Harmony Korine
Upcoming Publication
Balthus
Catalogue Raisonné
L’Atelier de Balthus, in partnership with Steidl and Gagosian, announces the preparation of a two-volume catalogue raisonné of Balthus’s work to be published in the fall of 2022. Edited under the direction of Yves Guignard, this updated edition of the inaugural catalogue raisonné first issued in 1999 by Jean Clair and Virginie Monnier will incorporate in-depth archival research about Balthus’s artistic legacy. The newly designed publication will unveil recently discovered artworks as well as include comprehensive provenance and exhibition histories accompanied by full-color reproductions of Balthus’s painting oeuvre, related drawings, and studies.
Collectors with a previously unauthenticated or unknown work by Balthus in their possession are invited to contact the editorial team at contact@fonds-balthus.com to submit the work for potential inclusion in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné.
Those whose works were featured in the 1999 catalogue raisonné are requested to submit updated provenance and exhibition history details as well as high-resolution digital images for inclusion in the new publication before December 1, 2021.
Balthus, Passage du Commerce-Saint-André, 1952–54 © Balthus, 2021
Visit
Gallery Weekend LA
Frank Gehry, Albert Oehlen, Nancy Rubins
July 28–August 1, 2021
Los Angeles
weekend.galleryplatform.la
Gagosian is participating in the inaugural Gallery Weekend LA with three exhibitions. Frank Gehry: Spinning Tales and Nancy Rubins: Fluid Space, both on view at Gagosian’s Beverly Hills location, will be open for extended hours during Gallery Weekend LA (July 28: 10am–7pm; July 29–30: 10am–5:30pm; July 31–August 1: 12–6pm). Visitors can also see Albert Oehlen: Tramonto Spaventoso with an appointment, on view at the Marciano Art Foundation (July 28–31: 11am–5pm). The event is organized through Gallery Association Los Angeles and galleryplatform.la and includes nearly eighty-five of the city’s leading contemporary art galleries and museums.
Frank Gehry, Wishful Thinking, 2021, installation view, Frank Gehry: Spinning Tales, Gagosian, Beverly Hills, 2021 © Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Joshua White
In Conversation
Theaster Gates
Louise Bernard
Tuesday, August 10, 2021, 6pm EDT
Join Theaster Gates and Louise Bernard, founding director of the Museum of the Obama Presidential Center, for a discussion about art and democracy on the occasion of the exhibition The Obama Portraits, on view at the Art Institute of Chicago through August 15, 2021. To attend the online event, register at sales.artic.edu.
Left: Theaster Gates. Photo: Rankin. Right: Louise Bernard
Museum Exhibitions
Closing this Week
Soutine/de Kooning
Conversations in Paint
Through August 8, 2021
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
www.barnesfoundation.org
Soutine / de Kooning: Conversations in Paint creates a visual dialogue and explores affinities between the work of Chaïm Soutine (1893–1943) and Willem de Kooning (1904–1997). The exhibition, which presents nearly forty-five works, considers how Soutine’s paintings, with their built-up surfaces and energetic brushwork, informed de Kooning’s art, shaping his figurative/abstract works in the late 1940s and beyond.
Willem de Kooning, Woman, 1953, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC © 2021 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Closing this Week
Damien Hirst
End of a Century
Through August 8, 2021
Newport Street Gallery, London
www.newportstreetgallery.com
End of a Century features over fifty early works by Damien Hirst, spanning his formative years as a student in the 1980s through the 1990s, when he became one of Britain’s leading contemporary artists. Featuring installations, sculpture, and paintings, some of which have not been seen before, the exhibition surveys a selection of Hirst’s most iconic series.
Damien Hirst, Up, Up and Away, 1997 © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2020
Closing this Week
The Paradox of Stillness
Art, Object, and Performance
Through August 8, 2021
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
walkerart.org
Featuring works from the early twentieth century to today, The Paradox of Stillness examines the notion of stillness as both a performative and a visual gesture. More than sixty-five artists present object-based art, pictures, and actions staged by live performers to test the boundaries between stillness and motion, mortality and aliveness, and the still life and the living picture. Work by Urs Fischer, Piero Manzoni, Tom Wesselmann, and Franz West is included.
Urs Fischer, Untitled, 2003 © Urs Fischer
Just Opened
Roy Lichtenstein
History in the Making, 1948–1960
Through October 24, 2021
Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York
parrishart.org
This exhibition investigates the early work of Roy Lichtenstein, providing an illuminating prologue to the artist’s well-known comics-inspired imagery. History in the Making tells the largely overlooked story of Lichtenstein’s early career, when formal experimentation and a keen eye for irony irrevocably defined his art. Bringing together works from museum and private collections across the United States, the exhibition presents approximately eighty paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints, many never before seen by the public.
Roy Lichtenstein, Variations No. 7, 1959, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein