To celebrate the extraordinary contributions that Susan Hiller (1940-2019) made in regards to furthering the fields of feminism, post-conceptualism and research based art practices, a special hang of early paintings, photographic works and sculptural objects by the American-born artist will take place at Frieze Masters, in the same week as a private memorial at Tate Modern commemorating her life and work. Organised in collaboration with her estate, this solo presentation pays homage to Hiller's multi-faceted career, featuring works that explore interconnecting interests and formative themes within her art, such as notions of the interior self, the aura, automatic writing and the female author, as well as a never-before-seen display of her earliest extant works, entitled Studies for 'Home' (1968).
The scale and subject matter of the domestic reappear in works such as Alphabet (Girls), one of her 1980s 'Wallpaper Paintings' that highlight the formation and indoctrination of gendered stereotypes as well as suggesting the power of dreams and language to shape childhood imagination. Hiller's interest in the homely-or perhaps the unheimlich-is further reflected in the feel of the entire booth, which recalls her cosy living room arrangement currently installed at Tate Britain, at the centre of which flickers a suggestive, trancelike film, Belshazzar's Feast (1983-1984). Hiller herself appears in early 'Photomat Portraits', automated self-portraits dating from the early 1970s, which she described at the time as 'introducing an active sense of co-operation among artist, subject and machine', or else in disembodied 'Hand Paintings', which recall prehistoric cave art. Hiller is also the subject in Study for Ten Months (1977-1979), which documents her pregnancy, treating it in the manner of a rigorously conceptual work of art, to explore the construction of female identity, positioning her as both subject and object.
At Frieze London, homage is paid to another female artist whose recent death likewise caused shockwaves in the art community. Joyce Pensato (1941-2019) died in June following a short illness but it was decided, in conjunction with her wishes and her longstanding New York gallery, Petzel, to continue with the planned dual-presentation at the art fair with Stanley Whitney. The mini-survey of Pensato works pays tribute to her irrepressible artistic force, as well as to her kinship with other American painters from Joan Mitchell to Christopher Wool. Known for her exuberant and expressive likenesses of cartoon characters and comic-book heroes, the presentation will include two of the artist's distinguished 'Homer' paintings, including the large-scale enamel on canvas, Groucho-Homer (2014) and Castaway Homer (2015) with metallic paint on canvas. Accompanying these towering behemoths of American sub-culture, the booth will also present an epic work on paper of Mickey, made in 2000, and a mischievous looking Donald Duck titled Moto Mouth from 2009. These works, simultaneously humorous and sinister, reflect the artist's dynamic technique, involving the deliberate accretion of successive layers of bold linear gestures, rapid spattering and frequent erasures.
Alongside this, Whitney-also Brooklyn-native painter and great friend of Pensato's-will present five new oil-on-linen paintings: The Space of Possibility, Sing All Day, Manet's Green, Four Corners and Gotham (all 2019). Whitney, who has been exploring the formal possibilities of colour within ever -shifting grids of multi-hued blocks since the mid-1970s, shows a similar affiliation for the art of the gesture, with expressive marks and passages seen across his paintings. These multi-coloured paintings take their cue from early Minimalism, Colour Field painters, jazz music and Whitney's favourite historical artists, from Titian to Velázquez and Cézanne. This presentation complements Whitney's solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery, opening on 2 October, focusing on the artist's 'Afternoon Paintings'-smaller scale abstractions that colours of his morning painting session, but remixed with a new type of spontaneity and informality.
About the artists
Susan Hiller (1940-2019) was born in Tallahasse, Florida, and was based mainly in London since the early 1960s. After studying film and photography at The Cooper Union and archaeology and linguistics at Hunter College in New York, Hiller went on to a National Science Foundation fellowship in anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans. Her career has been recognised by survey exhibitions at The Polygon, Vancouver, Canada (2018); Officine Grande Riparazioni, Turin, Italy (2018); Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL, USA (2017); Samstag Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark (2014); Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Toulouse, France (2014); Tate Britain, London, UK (2011); Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (2007); Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy (2006); Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2004); ICA, Philadelphia, PA, USA (1998); and ICA, London, UK (1986). Hiller's work features in numerous international private and public collections including the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA; Tate Gallery, London, UK and the Centro de Arte Contemporanea Inhotim, Brumadinho, Brazil.
Joyce Pensato (1941-2019) was born in Brooklyn, New York. Solo exhibitions included Grice Bench, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2018); Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, USA (2016); Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria (2016); Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX, USA (2015); High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, USA (2014); Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, USA (2013); and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO, USA (2013). Group exhibitions included those at South London Gallery, London, UK (2018); Drawing Room, London, UK (2018); Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY, USA (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, USA (2017); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, USA (2017); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA (2017); Aïshti Foundation, Jar el-Dib, Beirut, Lebanon (2016); Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark (2016); and 'Empire State', curated by Alex Gartenfeld and Sir Norman Rosenthal at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2013). Pensato's work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA; SFMoMA, San Francisco, CA, USA; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA; the Dallas Museum of Art, TX, USA; St Louis Art Museum, MO, USA and the FRAC des Pays de la Loire, France. She won numerous awards in her lifetime, including the Robert de Niro, Sr. Prize (2013), the Award of Merit Medal for Painting, given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2012), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award (1997) and the Guggenheim Fellowship (1996).
Stanley Whitney was born in Philadelphia in 1946 and lives and works in New York City and Parma, Italy. He holds a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute as well as an MFA from Yale University and is currently Professor emeritus of painting and drawing at Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Select solo exhibitions include Focus - Stanley Whitney at the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX, USA (2017) and Dance the Orange at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, USA (2015). Whitney has also been included in many prominent group shows, such as Inherent Structure, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH, USA (2018); Documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany (2017); Nero su Bianco at the American Academy in Rome, Italy (2015); Outside the Lines: Black in the Abstract, Contemporary Art Museum of Houston, TX, USA (2014); Reinventing Abstraction: New York Painting in the 1980s, Cheim & Read, New York, NY, USA (2013); and Utopia Station at the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). He has won prizes including the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize in Painting (2011), the American Academy of Arts and Letters Art Award (2010) and awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (1996). Whitney's work is included in public collections around the world, including the Nelson- Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, KA, USA; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA, USA; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, USA.
Opening Days & Hours
Wednesday Preview
2 October (Invitation only)
Thursday Preview
3 October: 11am-8pm
Thursday Private View
3 October: 5pm-8pm
Friday 4 - Saturday 5 October
11am-7pm
Sunday 6 October
11am-6pm
Lisson Gallery represents these artists: