Works Exhibited
About
I paint nature.
—Brice Marden
Gagosian is pleased to present Morocco, an exhibition by Brice Marden, traveling from the Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Marrakech, Morocco.
Nearly forty years ago, Marden visited Morocco for the first time, setting into motion a new line of artistic inquiry inspired by the intricate architecture and late afternoon light of the “Rose City.” This exhibition includes more than sixty works on paper, forty-eight of which were once contained in a workbook that accompanied the artist over the past decade. In the majority of the works, a square or rectangle is set within the white of the page, with winding lines and loose blots rendered in colored ink forming tangled grids of varying densities. Infinitely fluid, Marden’s gestures in yellow, red, and blue oscillate between foreground and background, light and darkness.
The cornerstone of the exhibition is Helen’s Moroccan Painting (1980), a large-scale canvas titled for Marden’s wife, also a painter. The canvas is divided horizontally into two rectangles—green on top (evoking Morocco’s valleys) and burnt sienna below (recalling the red earth)—both applied in thick oil paint with beeswax and inspired by Marden’s memory of the landscape during a drive from Ouarzazate in 1978. An untitled work from 2018 swaps these colors, so that a narrower band of green appears at the bottom of the composition and the rest is deep red. What sets the two works apart most, however, is the vibrating veil of multicolored lines that seems to float at the surface of the picture plane in the latter painting.
Je peins la nature.
—Brice Marden
Gagosian est heureuse de présenter Morocco, une exposition de Brice Marden, en provenance du Musée Yves Saint Laurent de Marrakech au Maroc.
Il y a presque quarante ans, Marden a visité le Maroc pour la première fois, mettant en œuvre un nouvel axe de recherche artistique inspiré de l’architecture complexe et de la lumière de la fin d’après-midi de la « Ville Rose ». L’exposition comprend plus de soixante œuvres sur papier, dont quarante-huit faisaient partie d’un carnet de dessins qui a accompagné l’artiste pendant la dernière décennie. Dans la plupart des œuvres, un carré ou un rectangle s’inscrit dans le blanc de la page, avec des lignes sinueuses et des taches lâches rendues en encre colorée ou en gouache, formant des grilles enchevêtrées de densités variables. Infiniment fluides, les gestes de Marden en jaune, rouge et bleu, oscillent entre premier plan et arrière-plan, lumière et obscurité.
La pierre angulaire de l’exposition est Helen’s Moroccan Painting (1980), une toile de grand format dont le titre porte le nom de la femme de Marden, qui est peintre également. La toile est divisée horizontalement en deux rectangles – vert sur le dessus (évoquant les vallées du Maroc) et terre de Sienne brûlée en dessous (rappelant la terre rouge) – tous deux à la peinture à l’huile épaisse mélangée à de la cire et s’inspirant du souvenir que Marden a gardé d’un paysage sur la route depuis Ouarzazate en 1978. Une œuvre sans titre de 2018 échange ces couleurs, faisant apparaître une bande verte plus étroite en bas de la composition tandis que le reste de la peinture est rouge profond. Ce qui distingue cependant le plus les deux œuvres est le voile vibrant de lignes multicolores qui semble flotter à la surface de l’image dans cette seconde peinture.
#BriceMardenMorocco
Artist
Brice Marden
Larry Gagosian celebrates the unmatched life and legacy of Brice Marden.
The Generative Surface
Eileen Costello explores the oft-overlooked importance of paper choice to the mediums of drawing and printmaking, from the Renaissance through the present day.
Book Corner
Private Pages Made Public
Megan N. Liberty explores artists’ engagement with notebooks and diaries, thinking through the various meanings that arise when these private ledgers become public.
The River Café Cookbook
London’s River Café, a culinary mecca perched on a bend in the River Thames, celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2018. To celebrate this milestone and the publication of her cookbook River Café London, cofounder Ruth Rogers sat down with Derek Blasberg to discuss the famed restaurant’s allure.
Intimate Grandeur: Glenstone Museum
Paul Goldberger tracks the evolution of Mitchell and Emily Rales’s Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland. Set amid 230 acres of pristine landscape and housing a world-class collection of modern and contemporary art, this graceful complex of pavilions, designed by architects Thomas Phifer and Partners, opened to the public in the fall of 2018.
Brice Marden: Four Quartets
Four paintings by Brice Marden have been incorporated into a new dance commission based on T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, with choreography by Pam Tanowitz, and music by Kaija Saariaho. The performance will premiere on July 6, 2018 at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard as part of the SummerScape Festival. Gideon Lester, the Fisher Center’s artistic director for theater and dance, spoke with Marden about the canvases that form the set design.
