Extended through May 10, 2019
About
I am interested in the fragility of the moment of engagement—in heightening that moment. . . . To see a work, knowing that it will not last, emphasizes that moment of its existence.
—Richard Wright
Gagosian is pleased to present new work by Richard Wright. This is his first solo exhibition in New York since 2005.
Wright’s site-specific, often transient works unite painting with graphic and architectural elements, charging the spaces on which they are made with a fourth dimension. His paintings, works on paper, windows in leaded glass, and applied metal-leaf schemes dynamize the traditionally static relationship between painting and viewer, examining notions of memory, ephemerality, and duration.
With a deep understanding of art history that informs his diverse imagery, Wright oscillates between illusion and abstraction, pure and applied art, and includes references to Minimalism, Renaissance painting, de Stijl, Abstract Expressionism, Op Art, record covers, and commercial art. Produced in situ over a limited time period, each work develops while it is being made and is only fully formed and resolved once the working period has elapsed and the exhibition opens.
Wright is creating a site-specific, temporary work at Gagosian’s Park & 75 space, responding to the 1920s storefront and interior. The red brick Victorian neo-Renaissance building, complete with its stylized pilasters and cornices, is the final remaining structure of the terrace that was built in 1891, now part of the landmarked Upper East Side Conservation District. In 1922, the building was converted to a storefront, a layout that the gallery maintains today. The labor-intensive process that Wright undertakes to gild his hand-drawn design onto the architecture’s irregular interior surfaces will implicate the whole space. He will respond to the way in which light is captured throughout the day, whereby its tones and reflections render the work itself constantly in flux, with effects ranging from an iridescent, mirrorlike surface to a black negative. The work will be destroyed when the exhibition ends.
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Behind the Art
Richard Wright
In an interview with Kay Pallister, the artist explains his relationship to drawing and the importance of time in his site-specific works.
In Conversation
Richard Wright and Martin Clark
Richard Wright and Martin Clark, director of Camden Art Centre, London, discuss Wright’s latest body of work, recent commissions, and new monograph, which provides a comprehensive overview of his practice between 2010 and 2020.
No Title
In an excerpt from his forthcoming monograph, Richard Wright pens a personal and philosophical text about painting.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2019
The Summer 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Afrylic by Ellen Gallagher on its cover.
Richard Wright
Louise Neri discusses the artist’s new exploration of glass works.