Since 1985 Yuji Agematsu has collected detritus as he walks the streets of New York. Here wall mounted panels provide him with a structure within which to compose such objects, as–is.
Each panel is made without a plan and later finessed into final place. Agematsu is no stranger to working this way, his daily artworks, known as 'zips,' are always an improvisation held fast later. The shapes and moods of these panels came together in quick spurts during a summer of great dismay in New York, but their route to life occurred over long, devotional periods of time, as some of the objects on display have been in Agematsu's possession since the late 1990s. Others were collected only this summer. Objects have their shape and weight, their color, and beyond this a dimension for which there is no scale, their importance. Yuji Agematsu's new wall panels, about which we really know so little, are furnished with objects as they leave the streets of New York and enter an exercise of improvisation unbroken since the 1980s.
Yuji Agematsu (b. 1956, Kanagawa, Japan) studied movement at Milford Graves' Yara workshop, a great influence on his daily walks. Agematsu's routines and habits within New York City reflect the daily jobs he worked until just shy of a decade ago. He has assisted artists Nam June Paik and Sol LeWitt, worked as a videographer, a house painter, and at the renowned John Weber Gallery and the Judd Foundation. Recent solo exhibitions of Agematsu's work include Day by Day at the Power Station, Dallas (2018); Yuji Agematsu at Lulu, Mexico City (2019); 1995 & 2003, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2019); Times Square Time (Kodak All-Stars) at Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2020); zip: 05.01.14 . . . 05.31.14 at the Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius (2019); 2020 at Secession, Vienna (2021). In 2022 Agematsu presented a solo performance, Chasing Milford, organized by Artists Space. A selection of recent group exhibitions includes Meander with artist Tauba Auerbach at the Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts (2022); Greater New York at MoMA PS1, New York (2021-22); Journalier with artist On Kawara, La Maison de Rendez-Vous, Brussels (2020); and the 57th Edition of the Carnegie International, Pittsburg (2018). His work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; Walker Art Center, Minnesota; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Columbus Museum of Art; Loewe Foundation, Madrid; and the Pinault Collection, Paris.
Press release courtesy Gladstone Gallery.
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