Almine Rech Gallery is delighted to announce the opening of its gallery in New York on October 28, 2016, with an inaugural exhibition entitled Calder and Picasso. This will be the gallery’s first exhibition space in the United States, and is a reflection of their longstanding relationship with the American art scene. The New York outpost, located in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, will be led by Paul de Froment, who spearheaded the gallery’s effort to expand its footprint into the United States. Almine Rech Gallery, which opened in Paris in 1997 and will celebrate its twentieth anniversary next year, also maintains gallery spaces in Brussels and London.
Froment noted, 'It is an honor to inaugurate Almine Rech Gallery’s newest location in New York City with an exhibition by two of the most iconic artists of the 20th century. The exhibition is not only an exploration of the creative dialogue between these two formidable artists, but an insightful and intimate story shared from the families’ perspectives.'
Calder and Picasso is an unprecedented exhibition that will explore for the very first time the subject of these two celebrated modern masters. In an exceptional twist, the show is curated by the esteemed artists’ grandsons, Alexander S. C. Rower and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, both of whom have dedicated their lives to furthering their grandfathers’ artistic legacies. Throughout their two-year conversation leading up to this exhibition, Rower and Ruiz-Picasso explored the artists’ preoccupations and practices, alighting on a fascinating spectrum of subjects, ranging from Calder and Picasso’s propensity for social engagement to fundamentally different outlooks, despite similarly prolific outputs. The resulting exhibition will feature more than fifty works created between 1912 and 1967, many of which have seldom or never before been exhibited. A catalogue will accompany the show, featuring a moderated interview by Phong Bui with Rower and Ruiz- Picasso, as well as archival materials and photographs.
Rower, President of the Calder Foundation, states, 'Working with Bernard on this project over the past couple of years, I have developed a much deeper understanding of the resonance between our grandfathers. Both Picasso and Calder were visionaries who shared an obsession with the void, or nonexistence as actual matter. It has been incredibly rewarding to explore this connection by gleaning our personal collections to create plays of visual identity—an intuitive process of discovery and rediscovery.'
Picasso and Calder figured among the most innovative of the Parisian avant-garde in the early 20th century, taking quiet interest in each other’s work, though they shared many friends and political interests. The most significant of their encounters took place at the Spanish pavilion of the 1937 Paris World’s Fair, designed by Luis Lacasa and Josép Luís Sert, for which Picasso painted his iconic Guernica and Calder created his Mercury Fountain—both overtly political works in reaction to the Spanish Civil War.
Current and upcoming museum exhibitions that showcase Calder include: Alexander Calder & Fischli/Weiss at the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Basel, May 29 – September 4, 2016; an exhibition dedicated to Calder’s Brazilian legacy at Itau Cultural, São Paulo, August 31 – October 23, 2016; and the new permanent 'Calder Tower' at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., opening on September 30, 2016. Solo exhibitions of Picasso’s work will include: Picasso. Sculptures at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, October 26, 2016 – March 5, 2017; Picasso: Portraiture and Caricature at the Museu Picasso, Barcelona, March 16 – June 25, 2017; Picasso: The Line at the Menil Collection, Houston, September 15, 2016 – January 8, 2017; and Olga at the Musée National Picasso, Paris, March 21 – September 3, 2017.
Almine Rech Gallery will be located at 39 East 78th Street and is designed by David Bucovy. The space measures approximately 3,000 square feet.
About Almine Rech Gallery
Almine Rech Gallery opened its doors on April 1, 1997, in the 13th Arrondissement in Paris. The gallery was founded on a Minimal and Conceptual axis, representing artists such as James Turrell, John McCracken, and Joseph Kosuth.
In addition to its stable of internationally recognized, established, and mid-career artists, it has always been the gallery’s mission to continually seek out and include new artists to its program. The gallery has held longstanding relationships with artists like Turrell and McCracken, and has since started working with and representing artists of different generations such as Joe Bradley, Brian Calvin, Günther Förg, Alex Israel, Jeff Koons, Jannis Kounellis, Bertrand Lavier, Erik Lindman, Richard Prince, Julian Schnabel, Taryn Simon, and DeWain Valentine, among others.
About Paul de Froment
Paul de Froment is the Director of Almine Rech Gallery in New York City. Immersed in the visual arts since a young age, Froment has worked at commercial art galleries in both Paris and New York. After pursuing business studies in France and China, he started a career in finance. In 2013, he chose to return his attentions to the art world, working at Fundación Almine et Bernard Ruiz-Picasso with Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. There, he oversaw the preparation of the exhibition Picasso & the Camera working alongside Ruiz-Picasso and renowned scholar John Richardson. Building on this seminal experience, Froment moved to New York in 2015 and proposed the opening of the new branch of Almine Rech Gallery in the city’s storied Upper East Side.
About Bernard Ruiz-Picasso
Bernard Ruiz-Picasso is the grandson of Pablo Picasso and his wife Olga Khokhlova Picasso, son of Paul and Christine Ruiz-Picasso. The organizer of major Picasso exhibitions internationally, Ruiz-Picasso lives and works in Brussels. He cofounded the Museo Picasso Málaga with an important donation of Picasso works he made alongside his mother Christine Ruiz-Picasso. Ruiz-Picasso serves as President of the Advisory Council of the museum, which functions as a center for Picasso studies, ensuring that the work of Picasso is conserved, studied, and exhibited. Additionally, Ruiz-Picasso and Almine Rech-Picasso are the Founders and Co-Presidents of Fundación Almine et Bernard Ruiz-Picasso (FABA), an art foundation set up in 2002 which holds a collection of works by Picasso, as well as by contemporary artists. The aims of the Foundation include the study of Picasso’s work, support for contemporary art, and participation in exhibitions. Since its creation, the Foundation has collaborated on and supported exhibitions of Picasso and of contemporary art, including at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Dia Art Foundation, New York; Frick Collection, New York; Grand Palais, Paris; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao and New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musée du Louvre, Paris; Musée National Picasso, Paris; Museo del Prado, Madrid; Museo Picasso de Barcelona; Museo Picasso Málaga; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; New Museum, New York; Serpentine Galleries, London; Tate Britain and Tate Liverpool, London; The Met Breuer, New York; and Whitney Museum of America Art, New York.
About Alexander S. C. Rower
Alexander S. C. Rower is the President and Founding Director of the Calder Foundation and Alexander Calder’s grandson. After Calder’s death in 1976, Rower recognized the need for the scholarly management of the artist’s legacy, and he began the Foundation in 1987 at a time when the concept of artist foundations was almost nonexistent. Since then, Rower has established an extensive archive dedicated to all aspects of Calder’s career, positioning the Calder Foundation at the forefront of legacy preservation.
Rower has curated and collaborated on over 85 solo exhibitions worldwide, including projects at Tate Modern, London; Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Saint Louis; Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Basel; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Menil Collection, Houston; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. He has published many texts on Calder’s life and work, and he frequently lectures on the subject.
Press release courtesy Almine Rech.
39 East 78th Street, 2nd Floor
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