HAROLD ANCART

On view in one gallery space will be a new series of paintings that depicts trees. These works were painted between Ancart’s Brooklyn studio and a makeshift outdoor studio in Los Angeles, which he traveled to during lockdown. Pointing to references as varied as René Magritte, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Piet Mondrian, who approached this subject matter in distinct ways, Ancart’s tree paintings blur form and colour, figure and ground, and figuration and abstraction.

In the adjoining gallery space, there will be two multipanel canvases that situate the viewer between a mountain-scape and a seascape, both monumental in scale. These works are inspired in part by the artist’s encounter with the modernist landscape murals of the American painter Gottardo Piazzoni (1872–1945) permanently installed at the De Young Museum, San Francisco.

The exhibition constructs an immersive landscape experience, and together, the works on view comprise a meditation on the expansive possibilities of painting.

This exhibition is carbon neutral. The carbon footprint of the exhibition was calculated with the assistance of Atelier Ten and offset with a NY State based carbon sequestration program contributing to the capturing of landfill or livestock methane gas.

A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue will be published in 2021 by David Zwirner Books.

Harold Ancart was born in Brussels in 1980 and received his MFA at École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de la Cambre in 2007. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

In 2019 to 2020, the Public Art Fund presented Harold Ancart: Subliminal Standard at Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn. Ancart’s work was also featured in a solo exhibition, Harold Ancart: Untitled (There is no there there), at The Menil Collection, Houston, in 2016. The artist has participated in solo and group exhibitions around the world at institutions including the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent (2019); Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France (2018); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2017); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013); and WIELS Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussels (2012).

Ancart has also published a number of artist books, including Harold Ancart: Soft Places (Triangle Books, 2018) and Tokyo Private (Un Roman Photo) (Zolo Press, 2019).

Works by the artist are included in the permanent collections of numerous institutions worldwide, including the Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Lenbachhaus, Munich; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; The Menil Collection, Houston; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Harold Ancart: Pools, an online exhibition of the artist’s work, was presented in the spring of 2020 by David Zwirner. In 2018, the gallery exhibited a solo show of new iceberg paintings by the artist at its London location.