About
In addition to making paintings, drawings, and collages characterized by infectious exuberance and raw materiality, Spencer Sweeney produces immersive multimedia environments that transform gallery spaces into open workshops and performance stages, exposing the traditionally private realm of the artist’s studio to public scrutiny.
Born in Philadelphia, Sweeney graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1997. He then moved to New York, where, in concert with his visual practice, he helped establish the nightclub Santos Party House and worked as a DJ. He also cofounded the seminal noise-art group Actress (1997–2001) with Lizzi Bougatsos of Gang Gang Dance, performing as its drummer at gallery and museum events including Criss Cross: Some Young New Yorkers III at MoMA PS1 in 1999. Sweeney cites jazz as having influenced his reliance on improvisation, and alongside frequent references to popular culture in his work, he alludes to the history of art. His reclining nudes, portraits, and self-portraits, for example, reverberate with the amplified and distorted voices of Pablo Picasso, Édouard Manet, and Henri Matisse, while also combining the extemporaneous vigor of Neo-Expressionism with the knowing repetition of signature motifs.
In 2015 Spencer Sweeney, a 500-page book of conversations between the artist and some of his myriad inspirations from the worlds of cinema, literature, music, New York nightlife, and contemporary art, was published, testifying to his fundamental investment in context and open exchange. Sweeney’s painting and drawing salon Headz (2017–)—a collaboration with Urs Fischer—hosts performances by experimental jazz musicians such as Pete Drungle, Craig Harris, and Jay Rodriguez, and has received international stagings in Berlin, Mexico City, and Paris. In his current work, Sweeney continues to invoke the spirit of “availablism” (a term coined by performance artist Kembra Pfahler to describe making art with materials to hand), interweaving images of disarming psychological directness with a fluid and multilayered examination of the creative process itself.
Photo: Rob McKeever
#SpencerSweeney
Exhibitions
Artist to Artist: Spencer Sweeney and Peter Doig
Peter Doig visits Spencer Sweeney’s studio and the two discuss automatism, ambiguity, and anguish in the creative process.
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.
In Conversation
Spencer Sweeney and Edek Bartz
Curator and concert promoter Edek Bartz speaks with the artist about portraiture, album covers, and subverting expectations.
In Conversation
Spencer Sweeney and Kembra Pfahler
Kembra Pfahler speaks with Sweeney about his work, staying inspired, and the relationship between self-portraiture and performance.
Fairs, Events & Announcements
Art Fair
Art Basel Hong Kong 2024
March 27–30, 2024
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
www.artbasel.com
Gagosian is participating in Art Basel Hong Kong 2024 with a selection of works by international contemporary artists. The works on view, which embrace a dizzying variety of subjects and approaches, see the participating artists identify fresh ways to disrupt established histories of abstraction and figuration, and instill sculptural and painterly representations of the natural world with complex cultural significance.
Sarah Sze, Turning and Turning, 2024 © Sarah Sze. Photo: Maris Hutchinson
Art Fair
ART SG 2024
January 19–21, 2024, booth BC06
Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore
artsg.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in the second edition of ART SG, with a selection of works by international contemporary artists including Harold Ancart, Georg Baselitz, Ashley Bickerton, Amoako Boafo, Dan Colen, Edmund de Waal, Nan Goldin, Lauren Halsey, Hao Liang, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Tetsuya Ishida, Alex Israel, Donald Judd, Y.Z. Kami, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Rick Lowe, Takashi Murakami, Takashi Murakami & Virgil Abloh, Nam June Paik, Ed Ruscha, Jim Shaw, Alexandria Smith, Spencer Sweeney, Stanley Whitney, Jonas Wood, and Zeng Fanzhi. The works on view, which embrace a wide variety of subjects and approaches, find artists infusing traditional genres such as history painting, portraiture, and landscape with new and surprising ideas that traverse cultural and temporal boundaries.
Gagosian’s booth at ART SG 2024. Artwork, left to right: © ADAGP, Paris, 2024, © Jonas Wood, © Rick Lowe Studio. Photo: Ringo Cheung
Art Fair
West Bund Art & Design 2023
November 9–12, 2023, booth A102
West Bund Art Center, Shanghai
www.westbundshanghai.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in West Bund Art & Design with an extensive group presentation. The gallery will exhibit works by Harold Ancart, Georg Baselitz, Glenn Brown, Urs Fischer, Katharina Grosse, Hao Liang, Damien Hirst, Thomas Houseago, Alex Israel, Jia Aili, Anish Kapoor, Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, Takashi Murakami & Virgil Abloh, Albert Oehlen, Nam June Paik, Ed Ruscha, Alexandria Smith, Spencer Sweeney, Cameron Welch, Jonas Wood, and Zeng Fanzhi.
Gagosian’s booth at West Bund Art & Design 2023. Artwork, left to right: © Zeng Fanzhi; © Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany 2023; © Spencer Sweeney; © Yayoi Kusama. Photo: Alessandro Wang
Museum Exhibitions
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Spencer Sweeney
Perfect
May 10–September 11, 2022
Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut
www.brantfoundation.org
Perfect traces Spencer Sweeney’s robust practice over the last few years, bringing together his psychologically rich figurative paintings and works on paper. The exhibition includes the artist’s large-scale variations on the nude in repose as well as a series of portraits that create a humorous and self-deprecating tableau of interior fantasies, insecurities, musings, and struggles involved in the creative process. Additional galleries feature announcement paintings centered around events, parties, and concerts that Sweeney helped organize as a vital presence in New York City’s nightlife and music scene.
Installation view, Spencer Sweeney: Perfect, Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut, May 10–September 11, 2022. Artwork © Spencer Sweeney
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Spencer Sweeney in
The Conditions of Being Art: Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co. (1983–2004)
June 23–December 14, 2018
Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
ccs.bard.edu
The Conditions of Being Art examines the shared histories, art, and programming activities of two New York–based galleries—Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co.—by drawing upon the archives of each gallery to illuminate their distinctive curatorial practices, significant exhibitions, daily business activities, and social worlds. The exhibition includes work by more than forty artists who showed at or were associated with these galleries, including Spencer Sweeney.
Installation view, The Conditions of Being Art: Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co. (1983–2004), Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, June 23–December 14, 2018. Artwork, left to right: © Kembra Pfahler, © John Waters, © Spencer Sweeney. Photo: Chris Kendall
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Spencer Sweeney in
Painter’s Painters: Gifts from Alex Katz
June 14–November 2, 2014
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
high.org
Painter’s Painters: Gifts from Alex Katz focuses on more than twenty artworks gifted to the High Museum’s growing permanent collection by Alex Katz and the Alex Katz Foundation. The presentation features paintings by thirteen emerging and mid-career artists based in New York, in addition to a selection of works by Katz himself. Work by Spencer Sweeney is included.
Installation view, Painter’s Painters: Gifts from Alex Katz, High Museum of Art, Atlanta,
June 14–November 2, 2014. Artwork, left to right: © Wilhelm Sasnal, © Spencer Sweeney, © Laura Owens
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That Was Then, This Is Now
June 22–October 5, 2008
MoMA PS1, New York
www.moma.org
Inspired by the artistic and sociopolitical climate of the late 1960s, this group exhibition features work by artists united by the desire to mobilize art as a means of change. Focusing on three iconographic themes—flags, weapons, and dreams—That Was Then, This Is Now places these representations as central to artists’ collective aspiration toward progress. Work by Chris Burden, Adam McEwen, Spencer Sweeney, and Andy Warhol is included.
Installation view, That Was Then, This Is Now, MoMA PS1, New York, June 22–October 5, 2008. Artwork, front: © Spencer Sweeney; back, left to right: © Jasper Johns/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation; © The Estate of Lovett/Codagnone; © Peter Hendrick; © Barbara Kruger. Photo: Matthew Septimus, courtesy MoMA PS1