Brice Marden

Gagosian is pleased to present These paintings are of themselves, an exhibition of ten new paintings and nine new works on paper by Brice Marden. This is Marden’s first exhibition at Gagosian in Chelsea. A group of eight paintings, some of which were initiated as early as 2013, were completed in 2021; one additional canvas, Prelude (2011–21), and a separate larger, two-panel painting, Rocks (2008/2017–21), are also on view.

These paintings evoke the daily and seasonal shifts in natural light and color that Marden observes when working in his studio in Tivoli in upstate New York. He begins with drawing, filling some canvases with gestural glyphs that occupy a realm between writing and painting. Over these, he applies sinuous, multihued networks of linear brushstrokes, establishing interrelationships between the compositions’ straight and curving lines, and between their contours—whether defined or implied—and perimeters.

Each vertical panel measures 8 by 6 feet, comprised of an upper 6-by-6-foot square with a 2-by-6-foot section beneath. The paintings’ lower registers echo the form of a predella—the horizontal panel of smaller companion paintings that Renaissance artists added at the base of an altarpiece. Stained with dilute washes of earthy terre verte, these residual sections import the palette of the larger areas above them.