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Pat Steir

Paintings, Part II

June 21–September 3, 2022
Rome

Installation view Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view

Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view

Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view

Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view

Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view

Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view

Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Installation view

Artwork © Pat Steir. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto, M3 Studio

Works Exhibited

Pat Steir, Red Pour, 2021–22 Oil on canvas, 132 × 60 inches (333.5 × 152.4 cm)© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Red Pour, 2021–22

Oil on canvas, 132 × 60 inches (333.5 × 152.4 cm)
© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Yellow Pour, 2021–22 Oil on canvas, 132 × 60 inches (333.5 × 152.4 cm)© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Yellow Pour, 2021–22

Oil on canvas, 132 × 60 inches (333.5 × 152.4 cm)
© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Blue Pour, 2021–22 Oil on canvas, 132 × 60 inches (333.5 × 152.4 cm)© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Blue Pour, 2021–22

Oil on canvas, 132 × 60 inches (333.5 × 152.4 cm)
© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Small Many, 2021–22 Oil on canvas, 60 × 60 inches (152.4 × 152.4 cm)© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Small Many, 2021–22

Oil on canvas, 60 × 60 inches (152.4 × 152.4 cm)
© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Winter Evening, 2021–22 Oil on canvas, 108 × 108 inches (274.3 × 274.3 cm)© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Winter Evening, 2021–22

Oil on canvas, 108 × 108 inches (274.3 × 274.3 cm)
© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Winter Daylight, 2021–22 Oil on canvas, 108 × 108 inches (274.3 × 274.3 cm)© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Winter Daylight, 2021–22

Oil on canvas, 108 × 108 inches (274.3 × 274.3 cm)
© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Night, 2021–22 Oil on canvas, 120 × 108 inches (304.8 × 274.3 cm)© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, Night, 2021–22

Oil on canvas, 120 × 108 inches (304.8 × 274.3 cm)
© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, One Afternoon, 2021–22 Oil on canvas, 120 × 120 inches (304.8 × 304.8 cm)© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

Pat Steir, One Afternoon, 2021–22

Oil on canvas, 120 × 120 inches (304.8 × 304.8 cm)
© Pat Steir. Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

About

Gagosian is pleased to announce Pat Steir: Paintings, Part II, to conclude the summer season in Rome. Focused around a suite of tall and majestic paintings, the gallery has been entirely rehung with the artist’s collaboration to create new dialogues between works from different recent series.

In 1969, while completing his final historic series of paintings, Barnett Newman wrote, “Why give in to these purists and formalists who have put a mortgage on red, yellow, and blue, transforming these colors into an idea that destroys them as colors? I had, therefore, the double incentive of using these colors to express what I wanted to do—of making these colors expressive rather than didactic and of freeing them from the mortgage. Why should anybody be afraid of red, yellow, and blue?”

Newman’s provocation riffed on the title of Edward Albee’s controversial play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, an attack on the false optimism and myopic confidence of modern society. In his version, Newman raised enduring questions about the past and future of painting, responding to the earlier iconoclastic gestures of Aleksandr Rodchenko and Piet Mondrian as well as the climate of sober minimalism that had emerged in America, from the deathly late works of Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko to the black paintings of Frank Stella. Subsequently across time, painters such as Brice Marden, Philip Taaffe, Kerry James Marshall, and others have been moved to respond to Newman in highly individuated ways with works that reaffirm the vitality of their medium. Steir adds her own bold contribution to this painterly discourse with Red Pour, Yellow Pour, and Blue Pour (all 2022), a suite of three identically sized paintings. In liberating a stream of vivid primary color in a single gesture from the top edge down the center of each somber, blackened canvas, she performs a compositional chance operation that fuses ascetic restraint with unashamed expressiveness. This productive tension creates a lyric response that, though elegiac, is charged with life and its contingencies. Pat Steir is not afraid.

Per inaugurare la stagione estiva in galleria, Gagosian Roma è lieta di annunciare Pat Steir: Paintings, Part II. Con un focus su una suite di maestosi dipinti verticali, gli spazi sono stati interamente riallestiti in collaborazione con l’artista creando nuovi dialoghi tra opere recenti di diverse serie.

Nel 1969, mentre completava la sua ultima storica serie di dipinti, Barnett Newman scriveva: “Perché cedere a questi puristi e formalisti che hanno messo un’ipoteca sul rosso, sul giallo e sul blu, trasformando questi colori in un’idea che li distrugge come colori? Avevo, quindi, il doppio stimolo di usare questi colori per esprimere ciò che volevo fare, di rendere questi colori espressivi piuttosto che didattici e di liberarli dall’ipoteca. Perché qualcuno dovrebbe avere paura del rosso, del giallo e del blu?”

La provocazione di Newman – un riferimento alla controversa opera teatrale di Edward Albee Chi ha paura di Virginia Woolf?, in cui si criticavano il falso ottimismo e la fiducia miope della società moderna – ha sollevato interrogativi profondi sul passato e sul futuro della pittura; una risposta ai gesti iconoclasti di Aleksandr Rodchenko e Piet Mondrian e al clima di sobrio minimalismo instauratosi in America, che include le ultime opere funeree di Mark Rothko e Ad Reinhardt e i dipinti neri di Frank Stella. Successivamente, nel corso del tempo, pittori come Brice Marden, Philip Taaffe, Kerry James Marshall e altri, sono stati spinti a rispondere a Newman in modi fortemente personali con opere che riaffermano la vitalità del loro linguaggio. Steir aggiunge il proprio audace contributo a questo discorso sulla pittura con la suite di tre dipinti dalle stesse dimensioni esposta a Roma Red Pour, Yellow Pour e Blue Pour (tutte 2022). Liberando un flusso di vividi colori primari in un unico gesto dal bordo superiore verso il centro della tela scura, l’artista esegue un’operazione compositiva casuale che unisce moderazione ascetica ed espressività spudorata. Questa tensione produttiva crea una risposta pittorica che, sebbene elegiaca, è carica di vita e delle sue contingenze. Pat Steir non ha paura.