Menu

Extended through September 17, 2016

Plane.Site

May 18–September 17, 2016
San Francisco

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Rachel Whiteread, © Joe Bradley, © Richard Serra

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Rachel Whiteread, © Joe Bradley, © Richard Serra

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, © Robert Therrien

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, © Robert Therrien

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, © Cy Twombly Foundation

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, © Cy Twombly Foundation

Works Exhibited

Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Deco Pink and Lemon Yellow Butterfly 45.95), 2016 Colored pencil on paper, 55 × 42 inches (139.7 × 106.7 cm)© Mark Grotjahn. Photo: Douglas M. Parker Studio

Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Deco Pink and Lemon Yellow Butterfly 45.95), 2016

Colored pencil on paper, 55 × 42 inches (139.7 × 106.7 cm)
© Mark Grotjahn. Photo: Douglas M. Parker Studio

Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Yellow Walkaway Mask M32.b), 2015–16 Painted bronze, 59 ⅜ × 24 ½ × 37 ½ inches (150.8 × 62.2 × 95.3 cm), unique variant© Mark Grotjahn. Photo: Douglas M. Parker Studio

Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Yellow Walkaway Mask M32.b), 2015–16

Painted bronze, 59 ⅜ × 24 ½ × 37 ½ inches (150.8 × 62.2 × 95.3 cm), unique variant
© Mark Grotjahn. Photo: Douglas M. Parker Studio

Roy Lichtenstein, Mobile III (Study), 1990 Tape and painted and printed paper on board, 80 ½ × 60 inches (204.6 × 152.4 cm)© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein, Mobile III (Study), 1990

Tape and painted and printed paper on board, 80 ½ × 60 inches (204.6 × 152.4 cm)
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein, Mobile III, 1990 Painted and patinated bronze, 57 × 52 × 13 inches (144.8 × 132.1 × 33 cm), edition of 6© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Photo: Rob McKeever

Roy Lichtenstein, Mobile III, 1990

Painted and patinated bronze, 57 × 52 × 13 inches (144.8 × 132.1 × 33 cm), edition of 6
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Photo: Rob McKeever

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2003 Acrylic, oil, and wax crayon on handmade paper, 39 ⅜ × 23 ⅝ inches (100 × 60 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2003

Acrylic, oil, and wax crayon on handmade paper, 39 ⅜ × 23 ⅝ inches (100 × 60 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever

Cy Twombly, Untitled (Lexington), 2009 Wood, white paint, cardboard, yellow acrylic, and plastic string, 21 × 12 × 9 ½ inches (53.3 × 30.5 × 24.1 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever

Cy Twombly, Untitled (Lexington), 2009

Wood, white paint, cardboard, yellow acrylic, and plastic string, 21 × 12 × 9 ½ inches (53.3 × 30.5 × 24.1 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Rob McKeever

Rachel Whiteread, 50 Spaces, 2010 Gouache and pencil on graph paper, 23 ¼ × 33 ⅛ inches (59 × 84 cm)© Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread, 50 Spaces, 2010

Gouache and pencil on graph paper, 23 ¼ × 33 ⅛ inches (59 × 84 cm)
© Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread, YELLOW EDGE, 2007–08 Plaster, pigment, and resin, in 4 parts, 7 ⅝ × 15 ¼ × 18 ½ inches (19.5 × 38.6 × 47 cm)© Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Mike Bruce

Rachel Whiteread, YELLOW EDGE, 2007–08

Plaster, pigment, and resin, in 4 parts, 7 ⅝ × 15 ¼ × 18 ½ inches (19.5 × 38.6 × 47 cm)
© Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Mike Bruce

About

The critic and curator Philip Rawson, an eloquent guide to the means and methods of drawing over the ages, points out that until the Italian Quattrocento, no European sculptor was supposed to be able to draw. In the medieval period, only those sculptors who also worked in two dimensions drew habitually; any other sculptor who needed, say, to show a client a proposed design hired a draftsman to make one. And when sculptors began to make drawings (for their own use or to guide assistants), they tended to do so without thinking of the format of the paper as a frame to which the image should relate. Instead, the image was generally treated as an independent motif, composed of mutually related units and placed anywhere on the sheet. In this approach, the space of the paper outside the image was not incorporated into the design but functioned like the open, empty space around actual sculptures. . . . In contrast, Rawson observes, painters’ drawings have tended to treat the usually rectangular format of the paper as a frame to which the image content relates.
—John Elderfield

Gagosianis pleased to present Plane.Site, a cross-generational exhibition of modern and contemporary artists organized by Sam Orlofsky to inaugurate the San Francisco gallery.

Plane.Site explores the dynamic exchanges between drawing and sculpture in the work of artists from the postwar period to the present day. To that end, each participating artist is represented by works in both two and three dimensions.

In an essay accompanying the exhibition, John Elderfield observes that “Moving from the boundaries of two dimensions into free space, artists may feel an obvious thrill of escape,” while noting that there is also “the less obvious but equally liberating escape from open space, with its grip of the literal, for the spontaneity of movement and freedom of illusion attainable in the haven of the two-dimensional.” Consistent with his observation, many modern and contemporary artists have evaded the dictate of the rectangular frame, allowing the drawn line to exist on different planes, and eventually, to descend from the canvas into three dimensions. In stepping away from the drawn line on paper and into the heft and mass of three-dimensional sculpture, such artists continued to negotiate the rectangular plane, even when composing in open space.

Read more

A Foreigner Called Picasso

Behind the Art
A Foreigner Called Picasso

Join president of the Picasso Museum, Paris, Cécile Debray; curator, writer, biographer, and historian Annie Cohen-Solal; art historian Vérane Tasseau; and Gagosian director Serena Cattaneo Adorno as they discuss A Foreigner Called Picasso. Organized in association with the Musée national Picasso–Paris and the Palais de la Porte Dorée–Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris, the exhibition reframes our perception of Picasso and focuses on his status as a permanent foreigner in France.

Dora Maar, Portrait de Picasso, Paris, studio du 29, rue d’Astorg, winter 1935–36

A Foreigner Called Picasso

Cocurator of the exhibition A Foreigner Called Picasso, at Gagosian, New York, Annie Cohen-Solal writes about the genesis of the project, her commitment to the figure of the outsider, and Picasso’s enduring relevance to matters geopolitical and sociological.

Installation view of Rachel Whiteread's ...And the Animals Were Sold exhibition in Italy

Rachel Whiteread: … And the Animals Were Sold

An installation by Rachel Whiteread in the Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo, Italy, commissioned by Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo and cocurated by Lorenzo Giusti and Sara Fumagalli, opened in June of 2023 and ran into the fall. Conceived in relation to the city, the architecture of the site, and the history of the region, it comprised sixty sculptures made with local types of stone. Fumagalli writes on the exhibition and architect Luca Cipelletti speaks with Whiteread.

Dorothy Lichtenstein and Irving Blum stand next to each other in front of Roy Lichtenstein's studio in Southampton, New York

In Conversation
Irving Blum and Dorothy Lichtenstein

In celebration of the centenary of Roy Lichtenstein’s birth, Irving Blum and Dorothy Lichtenstein sat down to discuss the artist’s life and legacy, and the exhibition Lichtenstein Remembered curated by Blum at Gagosian, New York.

Alison McDonald, Daniel Belasco, and Scott Rothkopf next to each other in front of a live audience

In Conversation
Daniel Belasco and Scott Rothkopf on Roy Lichtenstein

Gagosian and the Art Students League of New York hosted a conversation on Roy Lichtenstein with Daniel Belasco, executive director of the Al Held Foundation, and Scott Rothkopf, senior deputy director and chief curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Organized in celebration of the centenary of the artist’s birth and moderated by Alison McDonald, chief creative officer at Gagosian, the discussion highlights multiple perspectives on Lichtenstein’s decades-long career, during which he helped originate the Pop art movement. The talk coincides with Lichtenstein Remembered, curated by Irving Blum and on view at Gagosian, New York, through October 21.

Steve Martin playing a banjo

Roy and Irving

Actor and art collector Steve Martin reflects on the friendship and professional partnership between Roy Lichtenstein and art dealer Irving Blum.