Walter De Maria

Gagosian is proud to announce the representation of the Estate of the late Walter De Maria, a vital figure in the evolution of Minimalism, Conceptual art, Land art, and installation. De Maria died in July of 2013 at the age of seventy-seven.

On November 8, the first exhibition of sculptures and works on paper from the Estate will be presented at 980 Madison Avenue. This will be the sixth exhibition of De Maria’s work to be held at Gagosian’s locations since 1989.

The works on view, which date from 1976 to 1990, include the largest pair from The Equal Area Series (1976–90), Pair Number 25. Each of the twenty-five pairs in the series comprises a 7/8-inch thick, solid stainless-steel circle and square which, despite their distinctive geometries, measure nearly the same square space. A British racing-green wall as backdrop recalls the installation of Pair Number 19 at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, in 1989. Also alluding to that installation, two prerecorded musical compositions by De Maria—Cricket Music (c. 1964) and Ocean Music (c. 1968)—will be played in the space.

Large Rod Series: Pedestal Rods 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 (1984) comprises five highly polished solid stainless-steel rods ranging from five to thirteen sides, placed atop individual pedestals and spaced two meters apart. This work is part of a thirteen-year span of horizontal sculptures, beginning with The Broken Kilometer (1979), in which De Maria explored mathematical sequences through the grouping of similar polygonal forms. The Pure Polygon Series (1976), an editioned portfolio of seven drawings executed with a stencil, complements these sculptures. And, finally, De Maria’s prescient meditation on the incalculable reality of existence, There exists in the Universe more than One Billion Galaxies (1988), will also be on view.

A nonprofit entity established by Larry Gagosian, the Walter De Maria Foundation will be dedicated to managing the late artist’s rights and reproductions, advising on curatorial matters, and overseeing the preparation of a major monograph. Elizabeth Childress, former director of the De Maria studio, and current director of the Walter De Maria Collection and Archives, commented, “Walter so wished to establish his own foundation, but sadly he did not accomplish this during his lifetime. It is an important step to have this entity as both a protection and a promotion of his legacy.”