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An Ideal Landscape

February 9–March 27, 2021
980 Madison Avenue, New York

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Urs Fischer, © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Urs Fischer, © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Albert Oehlen; © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Albert Oehlen; © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Jennifer Guidi. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Jennifer Guidi. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Jennifer Guidi, © Theaster Gates. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Jennifer Guidi, © Theaster Gates. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Theaster Gates, © Neil Jenney. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Theaster Gates, © Neil Jenney. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Neil Jenney, © Jonas Wood. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Neil Jenney, © Jonas Wood. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Jonas Wood, © Mary Weatherford. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Jonas Wood, © Mary Weatherford. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork, left to right: © Mary Weatherford, © Urs Fischer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork, left to right: © Mary Weatherford, © Urs Fischer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view with Adam McEwen, Titanic Iceberg #3 (Blue) (2018) Artwork © Adam McEwen. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view with Adam McEwen, Titanic Iceberg #3 (Blue) (2018)

Artwork © Adam McEwen. Photo: Rob McKeever

Works Exhibited

Adam McEwen, Titanic Iceberg #3 (Blue), 2018 Inkjet print on cellulose sponge, 24 × 38 inches (61 × 96.5 cm)© Adam McEwen

Adam McEwen, Titanic Iceberg #3 (Blue), 2018

Inkjet print on cellulose sponge, 24 × 38 inches (61 × 96.5 cm)
© Adam McEwen

Neil Jenney, North America Depicted, 2009–10 Oil on wood, in painted wood artist’s frame, 41 × 46 × 3 ½ inches (104.1 × 116.8 × 8.9 cm)© Neil Jenney

Neil Jenney, North America Depicted, 2009–10

Oil on wood, in painted wood artist’s frame, 41 × 46 × 3 ½ inches (104.1 × 116.8 × 8.9 cm)
© Neil Jenney

Jonas Wood, Japanese Garden with Moon and Stars, 2020 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 × 70 inches (182.9 × 177.8 cm)© Jonas Wood

Jonas Wood, Japanese Garden with Moon and Stars, 2020

Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 × 70 inches (182.9 × 177.8 cm)
© Jonas Wood

Mary Weatherford, The Frog, 2020 Flashe and neon on linen, 66 × 58 inches (167.6 × 147.3 cm)© Mary Weatherford

Mary Weatherford, The Frog, 2020

Flashe and neon on linen, 66 × 58 inches (167.6 × 147.3 cm)
© Mary Weatherford

Urs Fischer, Purple Fall, 2020 Aluminum composite panel, aluminum honeycomb, polyurethane adhesive, epoxy primer, gesso, solvent-based screen-printing paint, and water-based screen-printing paint, 96 × 76 ¾ inches (243.8 × 194.9 cm)© Urs Fischer

Urs Fischer, Purple Fall, 2020

Aluminum composite panel, aluminum honeycomb, polyurethane adhesive, epoxy primer, gesso, solvent-based screen-printing paint, and water-based screen-printing paint, 96 × 76 ¾ inches (243.8 × 194.9 cm)
© Urs Fischer

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 84 ¼ × 72 ⅛ inches (214 × 183 cm)© Albert Oehlen

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2019

Acrylic on canvas, 84 ¼ × 72 ⅛ inches (214 × 183 cm)
© Albert Oehlen

Helen Frankenthaler, Peacock Alley, 1990 Acrylic on canvas, 70 ½ × 123 inches (179.1 × 312.4 cm)© 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Helen Frankenthaler, Peacock Alley, 1990

Acrylic on canvas, 70 ½ × 123 inches (179.1 × 312.4 cm)
© 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Jennifer Guidi, Light on the Mountain (Painted Green Sand #7A, Light Pink-Pink-Orange-Yellow Sky, Dark Purple-Blue Mountain, Green Ground), 2020 Sand, acrylic, and oil on linen, 21 × 15 inches (53.3 × 38.1 cm)© Jennifer Guidi. Photo: Rob McKeever

Jennifer Guidi, Light on the Mountain (Painted Green Sand #7A, Light Pink-Pink-Orange-Yellow Sky, Dark Purple-Blue Mountain, Green Ground), 2020

Sand, acrylic, and oil on linen, 21 × 15 inches (53.3 × 38.1 cm)
© Jennifer Guidi. Photo: Rob McKeever

Theaster Gates, Red City, 2020 Industrial oil-based enamel, rubber torch down, bitumen, wood, and copper, 72 × 108 inches (182.9 × 274.3 cm)© Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates, Red City, 2020

Industrial oil-based enamel, rubber torch down, bitumen, wood, and copper, 72 × 108 inches (182.9 × 274.3 cm)
© Theaster Gates

Walton Ford, Euphrates, 2020 Watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper, 60 × 120 inches (152.4 × 304.8 cm)© Walton Ford

Walton Ford, Euphrates, 2020

Watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper, 60 × 120 inches (152.4 × 304.8 cm)
© Walton Ford

Georg Baselitz, Non lesso, ma duro, 2020 Oil on canvas, 118 ⅛ × 75 ⅝ inches (300 × 192 cm)© Georg Baselitz 2020

Georg Baselitz, Non lesso, ma duro, 2020

Oil on canvas, 118 ⅛ × 75 ⅝ inches (300 × 192 cm)
© Georg Baselitz 2020

About

Gagosian is pleased to present An Ideal Landscape, a group exhibition exploring contemporary approaches to the depiction of place.

Throughout the history of art, landscape painting has functioned as an important locus of visual symbolism. By situating classical allegories in idyllic pastoral settings, for example, seventeenth-century European artists such as Annibale Carracci and Nicolas Poussin were able to present an idealized view of the world that provided visual theater while also reflecting cultural mores. An Ideal Landscape takes a parallel yet converse approach for our times, presenting the genre as a vehicle for critique of the flawed and fraught social and political landscapes of today’s world.

Some works on view, such as Helen Frankenthaler’s luminous Peacock Alley (1990), conceive landscape as atmospheric abstraction, while others present imagined locations that capture their creators’ longing for alternative yet elusive states of being. Some artists literally incorporate elements of real environments to explore formal concerns relating to composition, medium, and color. Combining both new industrial materials and salvaged fragments from roofs that once sheltered human life, the scarred skyline of Theaster Gates’s suggestively titled Red City (2020) evokes the grit and precarity of urban existence. In the sunset scene of Light on the Mountain (2020), Jennifer Guidi takes a similarly unorthodox material approach; she incorporates sand into her oil paints, allowing her to make dimensional, mandala-like marks across the surface of her canvas in an exploration of the mystical and the meditative. Despite their vastly different methods and philosophies, the artists featured in An Ideal Landscape are united by a shared desire not only to portray the lived world—but also to reshape it.

The exhibition includes works by Georg Baselitz, Urs Fischer, Walton Ford, Helen Frankenthaler, Theaster Gates, Jennifer Guidi, Neil Jenney, Adam McEwen, Albert Oehlen, Ed Ruscha, Mary Weatherford, and Jonas Wood.

Image of artist Mary Weatherford in front of her artwork

Mary Weatherford: The Flaying of Marsyas

In conjunction with her exhibition The Flaying of Marsyas at Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice, Mary Weatherford discusses the featured paintings, which are directly inspired by Titian’s late, eponymous masterpiece of circa 1570–76 and reflect her enduring fascination with the painting.

Urs Fischer: Wave

Urs Fischer: Wave

In this video, Urs Fischer elaborates on the creative process behind his public installation Wave, at Place Vendôme, Paris.

Georg Baselitz and Richard Calvocoressi sit next to each other in the artist’s studio

In Conversation
Georg Baselitz and Richard Calvocoressi

In conjunction with the exhibition The Painter in His Bed, at Gagosian, New York, Georg Baselitz and Richard Calvocoressi discuss the motif of the stag in the artist’s newest paintings.  

Jennifer Guidi’s Hawk Soars Skyward (Painted Natural Sand, Yellow-Orange-Pink Sky, Green, Purple and Black Mountains, Red, Blue, Purple, Turquoise, Yellow, Orange, Lavender and Green, Black Ground), 2023

Jennifer Guidi: Mountain Range

Invited to exhibit at Château La Coste in Provence, Jennifer Guidi created a new body of work that engaged with the cantilevered architecture of the gallery building, designed by Richard Rogers, and with the artistic heritage of the region. Amie Corry reports on the evolution of the exhibition and on its place within Guidi’s larger practice.

Château La Coste

Jennifer Guidi: Mountain Range

In this video, produced by Château La Coste, Jennifer Guidi discusses her latest solo exhibition, Mountain Range, conceived in response to the architecture of Château La Coste’s Richard Rogers Gallery and the surrounding landscape of Provence in the South of France. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with Gagosian, is now on view through September 3, 2023.

Carol Armstrong and John Elderfield seated in front of a painting by Helen Frankenthaler

In Conversation
Carol Armstrong and John Elderfield

In conjunction with the exhibition Drawing within Nature: Paintings from the 1990s at Gagosian in New York, Carol Armstrong and John Elderfield discuss Helen Frankenthaler’s paintings and large-scale works on paper dating from 1990 to 1995.