Art Fair
TEFAF New York Spring 2022
Urs Fischer and Man Ray
May 6–10, 2022, booth 350
Park Avenue Armory, New York
www.tefaf.com
Gagosian is pleased to announce its participation in TEFAF New York Spring 2022, with a special presentation juxtaposing works by Urs Fischer and Man Ray. Two artworks, hung in opposite corners of the stand, beckon to one another, engaging in a silent dialogue. On one wall is Man Ray’s Les grands-trans-parents (c. 1970–75), a consummate example of the artist’s enduring interest in Surrealist imagery and concepts since the 1920s. This work comprises a decorative oval mirror mounted on a sage green velvet support, with the enigmatic phrase of the title scrawled by the artist in black ink on the glass surface. The writing playfully refers to André Breton’s concept of the “Great Transparents,” unseen entities that were thought to cause illogical events in the world. As the text’s placement intentionally eclipses visual access to a viewer’s image—thereby thwarting the key function of a mirror—Les grands-trans-parents wittily captures the Surrealist desire to estrange the everyday world, drawing out extraordinary elements from ordinary objects or situations.
This strategy of using incongruous elements to induce new meanings is elaborated as well in the work located on the stand’s opposing wall. As an example of the artist’s celebrated Problem Paintings, Urs Fischer’s Grilled (2010) comprises a black-and-white vintage publicity still of an Old Hollywood screen siren that is supplanted by an enlarged color image of a bent stainless-steel spoon. Fischer’s tactical placement of the utensil obscures the identity of the actress, refracting the viewer’s gaze to instead draw out formal elements of the composition.
Using key techniques introduced by the Surrealist movement—such as illogical juxtapositions, changes of scale, and dislocation of objects from their typical contexts—both Man Ray’s Les grands-trans-parents and Fischer’s Grilled disrupt established visual orders to awaken the viewer to the remarkable strangeness that exists in the world around us. As such, Gagosian’s joint presentation of these two works at TEFAF offers a unique opportunity to consider points of conceptual similarity and difference, creating a deeper reflection on each respective work. When facing one another, Les grands-trans-parents and Grilled develop a provocative interplay, inspiring the viewer to see the world—in all its fantastic contradictions—anew.
To receive a PDF with detailed information on the works, please contact the gallery at inquire@gagosian.com.
To attend the fair, purchase tickets at tefaf.com.
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Installation
Urs Fischer
Rose
March 5–April 16, 2024
Gagosian, rue de Castiglione, Paris
Urs Fischer’s painting Rose (2024) is on view in the vitrine at Gagosian, rue de Ponthieu, Paris, as part of the artist’s exhibition Beauty at the rue de Castiglione gallery.
In 2010, Fischer began the Problem Paintings series, layering vivid screen-printed images of familiar objects and organic forms—from fixtures and fittings to fruits and vegetables—over precisely rendered enlargements of vintage Hollywood headshots. Rose belongs to this series and shows a glamorous screen actor wearing red lipstick, her face partially obscured by a luscious pink rose with a bright green stem and leaves. The juxtaposition enacts a playful conflict between clarity and secrecy, aesthetic experimentation and symbolic meaning. Evoking the cryptological messaging of Victorian floriography, Rose confronts the viewer with a mischievous, perhaps unsolvable visual conundrum.
Urs Fischer, Rose, 2024 © Urs Fischer. Photo: Stefan Altenburger
Art Fair
West Bund Art & Design 2023
November 9–12, 2023, booth A102
West Bund Art Center, Shanghai
www.westbundshanghai.com
Gagosian is pleased to participate in West Bund Art & Design with an extensive group presentation. The gallery will exhibit works by Harold Ancart, Georg Baselitz, Glenn Brown, Urs Fischer, Katharina Grosse, Hao Liang, Damien Hirst, Thomas Houseago, Alex Israel, Jia Aili, Anish Kapoor, Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, Takashi Murakami & Virgil Abloh, Albert Oehlen, Nam June Paik, Ed Ruscha, Alexandria Smith, Spencer Sweeney, Cameron Welch, Jonas Wood, and Zeng Fanzhi.
Gagosian’s booth at West Bund Art & Design 2023. Artwork, left to right: © Zeng Fanzhi; © Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany 2023; © Spencer Sweeney; © Yayoi Kusama. Photo: Alessandro Wang
Installation
Urs Fischer
Candyfloss
October 12–November 28, 2023
Gagosian, rue de Ponthieu, Paris
Urs Fischer’s painting Candyfloss (2023) is on view in the street-facing vitrine at Gagosian, rue de Ponthieu, Paris, presented along with the artist’s monumental sculpture Wave (2018) at Place Vendôme in Paris as part of Paris+ par Art Basel.
Candyfloss is one of the latest works in Fischer’s series of Problem Paintings, which he began in 2010. In this series, the artist formulates incongruous pairings of photographic portraits with vibrantly colored screenprinted images of inanimate objects. In Candyfloss, Fischer overlays an enlarged picture of a cerise-pink daisy on a digitally altered headshot of a Hollywood actress, obscuring her identity through the blossom’s placement. The visual “problem” resulting from this friction between illegibility and possibility—and from the clash of representational systems suggested by the flower’s mysteriously improbable shadow—is at once surprising and darkly humorous.
Urs Fischer, Candyfloss, 2023 © Urs Fischer
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