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David Reed

David Reed, #90, 1975 Oil on canvas, 76 ⅛ × 56 inches (193.4 × 142.2 cm), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, Elizabeth Richebourg Rea, in memory of Michael M. Rea, 2006© 2020 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

David Reed, #90, 1975

Oil on canvas, 76 ⅛ × 56 inches (193.4 × 142.2 cm), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, Elizabeth Richebourg Rea, in memory of Michael M. Rea, 2006
© 2020 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

David Reed, Judy’s Bedroom, 1992/2001 (with painting #486, 2001) Installation dimensions variable, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany, Acquired with funding from the 3x8 Fonds, an initiative of twelve Frankfurt-based companies and the City of Frankfurt© 2020 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

David Reed, Judy’s Bedroom, 1992/2001 (with painting #486, 2001)

Installation dimensions variable, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany, Acquired with funding from the 3x8 Fonds, an initiative of twelve Frankfurt-based companies and the City of Frankfurt
© 2020 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

David Reed, #617, 2003–11 Oil and alkyd on canvas, 44 × 190 inches (111.8 × 482.6 cm), Kunstmuseum Bonn, permanent loan from Sammlung Mondstudio© 2020 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

David Reed, #617, 2003–11

Oil and alkyd on canvas, 44 × 190 inches (111.8 × 482.6 cm), Kunstmuseum Bonn, permanent loan from Sammlung Mondstudio
© 2020 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

About

Preoccupied with reinventing the process of painting, David Reed manipulates the forms and associations of the brushstroke to foreground an unresolved tension between the gestural and the systematic. His current work is characterized by fluid marks that reveal the viscosity of paint and the shifting of color in a deliberately flattened manner that can appear almost photographic. Sometimes employing extremely elongated formats, he makes concurrent reference to the mechanics of cinema, linking his work to the culture at large while remaining focused on the dynamics of a painterly practice that resists formalism.

Reed was born in San Diego in 1946. His aunt and uncle, Rosemary and O. P. Reed, and his great-uncle August Biehle were all painters. (Also a gallerist, O. P. worked with the artist John McLaughlin [1898–1976], an early influence on Reed.) He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Madison, Maine, and Reed College in Portland, Oregon, graduating from the latter with a BA in 1968. In 1966 Reed arrived in New York (where he still lives) on a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, studying at the New York Studio School under the tutelage of Mercedes Matter and Milton Resnick, and attending a seminar led by Philip Guston. At the school he experienced a continued reverence for gestural mark making while knowing that many artists outside the school were skeptical not only of mark making, but also of the ongoing currency of painting itself.

Sympathetic to the humanist impulses that underpinned these opposing attitudes, Reed sought to reconcile gestural mark making with the systematic approach of contemporaneous Conceptual art, the material processes of Minimalist sculpture, and the deadpan visuality of experimental filmmaking. Between 1974 and 1975 he produced a succession of tall abstract canvases marked with primarily black or red strokes painted, wet-into-wet, from left to right, top to bottom, and sometimes diagonally. The works take the form of single and conjoined canvases, with their height determined by that of Reed’s studio door and their width by the limits of his reach.

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Fairs, Events & Announcements

Milton Resnick: The New York Studio School Talks, 1968–1972 (New York: Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, 2023)

In Conversation

Who Will Judge Me?
David Reed and Geoffrey Dorfman

Wednesday, November 15, 2023, 6:30pm
New York Studio School
nyss.org

Join David Reed and painter and author Geoffrey Dorfman to celebrate the release of the new edition of Milton Resnick: The New York Studio School Talks, 1968–1972. Transcribed and edited by Dorfman, the Resnick talks were first published in Out of the Picture: Milton Resnick and the New York School in 2003. This new printing includes “The Empty-Handed Painter,” an introduction by Reed, who studied at the New York Studio School and attended the talks. Reed and Dorfman will discuss the publication and their relationships with the first-generation New York School painter. The event is free to attend on a first-come, first-served basis, or online with registration.

Milton Resnick: The New York Studio School Talks, 1968–1972 (New York: Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, 2023)

David Reed, #747, 2020–22 © 2022 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

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Art Weekend Basel
David Reed: Losing and Finding

April 2–3, 2022, 11am–6pm
Basel
www.artweekendbasel.ch

Gagosian is participating in the second edition of Art Weekend Basel. Organized by Weiss + Falk Gallery and Galerie Mueller, the event brings together twelve of the city’s leading galleries, which will be open for extended hours over the weekend. The exhibition David Reed: Losing and Finding—featuring new and recent paintings by the artist—will be on view at Gagosian, Basel.

David Reed, #747, 2020–22 © 2022 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Willem de Kooning in his studio, East Hampton, New York, 1971. Artwork © 2022 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society, New York. Photo: © 2022 The Estate of Dan Budnik. All rights reserved

In Conversation

New Social Environment
Ode to Willem de Kooning

Saturday, March 19, 2022, 4pm EDT

As part of the Brooklyn Rail’s online series New Social Environment, John Elderfield, Joan Levy Hepburn, David Reed, Richard Shiff, Mark Stevens, Robert Storr, Charles Stuckey, Annalyn Swan, Flora Yukhnovich, and Phong H. Bui will be in conversation to celebrate the life and work of Willem de Kooning on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. De Kooning Foundation executive director Amy Schichtel will introduce the discussion. To join the online event, register at brooklynrail.org.

Willem de Kooning in his studio, East Hampton, New York, 1971. Artwork © 2022 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society, New York. Photo: © 2022 The Estate of Dan Budnik. All rights reserved

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Museum Exhibitions

David Reed, #679, 2015–17, Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland © David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: SIK-ISEA, Zürich, Philipp Hitz

On View

Von Gerhard Richter bis Mary Heilmann
Abstrakte Malerei aus Privat und Museumsbesitz

Through April 28, 2024
Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland
www.kmw.ch

This exhibition, whose title translates as From Gerhard Richter to Mary Heilmann: Abstract Art from Private Collections and the Museum’s Holdings, explores a shift in painting from the 1980s onward. At this time artists—painters in particular—developed a newfound freedom in relation to the work of the historical avant-garde, successfully combining the language of abstraction with reality, and in so doing creating something entirely new and fresh. Work by Richter and Heilmann will be shown alongside paintings from both the museum’s holdings and private collections, including work by Katharina Grosse and David Reed.

David Reed, #679, 2015–17, Kunst Museum Winterthur, Switzerland © David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: SIK-ISEA, Zürich, Philipp Hitz

Ed Ruscha, Victory, 1987, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh © Ed Ruscha

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The Milton and Sheila Fine Collection

November 18, 2023–March 17, 2024
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
carnegieart.org

Milton and Sheila Fine have been longtime advocates and supporters of the arts in their philanthropy throughout the Pittsburgh region. Promised to Carnegie Museum of Art in 2015, their collection of contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, and drawing reflects their interest in American and German art from the 1980s to the 2000s. This exhibition, which is presented as a celebration and remembrance of Milton Fine, who passed away in 2019, foregrounds the importance and impact of the gift. Work by Richard Artschwager, Georg Baselitz, Mark Grotjahn, Donald Judd, Brice Marden, David ReedEd Ruscha, Richard SerraJeff Wall, and Christopher Wool is included.

Ed Ruscha, Victory, 1987, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh © Ed Ruscha

David Reed, #662, 2013–17 © 2022 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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David Reed in
Given Time

September 8, 2022–February 25, 2023
Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, New York
www.resnickpasslof.org

This group exhibition has a starting point in 1991 when Molly Sullivan curated the exhibition Contemporary Abstract Painting: Resnick, Reed, Laufer & Moore for the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Her show referenced the tumult of the 1980s art market, the continuing debate over the future of painting, and the impact of the political arena in which artists live. Given Time expands on that exhibition to include artists from a broad spectrum of personal and political influences, as it considers the interim three decades from the Muscarelle show to our present day through a number of lenses. Work by David Reed is included.

David Reed, #662, 2013–17 © 2022 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Installation view, Marking Time: Process in Minimal Abstraction, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, December 18, 2019–August 2, 2020. Artwork, left to right: © 2020 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Park Seo-Bo; © Chryssa; © 2020 Jacob El Hanani; © 2020 Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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Marking Time
Process in Minimal Abstraction

December 18, 2019–August 2, 2020
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
www.guggenheim.org

During the 1960s and 1970s, many artists working with abstraction rid their styles of compositional, chromatic, and virtuosic flourishes. As some turned toward such minimal approaches, a singular emphasis on their interaction with materials emerged. The resulting pieces invite viewers to imaginatively reenact aspects of the creative process. Featuring paintings and works on paper, Marking Time explores how drawing attention to the creative process fosters a distinctively empathetic mode of engagement. Work by Brice Marden and David Reed is included.

Installation view, Marking Time: Process in Minimal Abstraction, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, December 18, 2019–August 2, 2020. Artwork, left to right: © 2020 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Park Seo-Bo; © Chryssa; © 2020 Jacob El Hanani; © 2020 Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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