Social Abstraction

Artist Devin B. Johnson meets with Diallo Simon-Ponte to reflect on the evolution of his practice, the impact of place on the temporal dimensions of his work, and the reemergence of ceramics in his exploration of abstraction and figuration.

Sculptor and creative director Ryuan Johnson focuses on the works of Allana Clarke and Lauren Halsey to examine the key place of hair in Black culture. Through image and poetry, Johnson reveals the cultural and historical significance of hair as an artistic medium.

Artists Rick Lowe and Kevin Beasley discuss their engagement with material and place, as well as the social potentials of abstraction.

Celebrating the collector Laurent Asscher’s new art space in Venice, William Middleton underscores the richness of Asscher’s relationships with artists.

Dieter Roelstraete, curator at the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago and coeditor of a recent monograph on Rick Lowe, writes on Lowe’s journey from painting to community-based projects and back again in this essay from the publication. At the Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice, during the 60th Biennale di Venezia, Lowe will exhibit new paintings that develop his recent motifs to further explore the arch in architecture.

Jon Copes asks, What can Black History Month mean in the year 2024? He looks to a selection of scholars and artists for the answer.

Join Gagosian for a conversation between Rick Lowe and his longtime friends Tom Finkelpearl, author and former commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Eugenie Tsai, senior curator of contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, inside Lowe’s exhibition Meditations on Social Sculpture, at Gagosian, New York. The trio discusses their shared interest in transforming social structures and the evolution of Lowe’s new paintings from his ongoing community projects.

Join Rick Lowe in his Houston studio as he speaks about his recent paintings, describing their connections to his long engagement with the activity of dominoes and to his community-based projects created in the tradition of social sculpture.

Lauren Halsey and Mabel O. Wilson discuss Black space and community in the context of architecture, building, and gentrification, as part of “Social Works,” a supplement guest edited by Antwaun Sargent for the Summer 2021 issue of the Quarterly.