Adam McEwen

Gagosian is pleased to announce XXIII, an exhibition of new paintings by Adam McEwen. Opening on February 10, 2023, this is McEwen’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery in Italy.

The protagonist of the works in XXIII is the ballpoint pen, an ubiquitous and instantly recognizable icon of modern design. McEwen transforms the transparent, hexagonal shapes of the pen into flat, schematic renderings in acrylic paint that accentuate both their linear forms and their creative potential. The works’ dimensions are slightly larger than those of a tall person, while their compositions suggest relationships that are both mechanical and figurative in their implications.

In their defamiliarization of the everyday, these paintings relate to the artist’s past works, from life-size sculptures of functional objects milled to scale in graphite to the obituaries of living people that are the focus of his concurrent solo exhibition at Gagosian London (on view from January 26 through March 11, 2023). They also resonate with the appropriation of mechanical drawings into the realm of painting by figures such as Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and Roy Lichtenstein.