Geneva—Pace is delighted to extend LeWitt, Nevelson, Pendleton at Quai des Bergues 15–17, from 16 May to 13 July 2018. The exhibition will further explore the conceptual affinities between the multidisciplinary artists working across different media and feature a refreshed selection of artworks.
Adopting an institutional approach, LeWitt, Nevelson, Pendleton Part II establishes parallels between intergenerational artists revealing three different artistic approaches that arrive at similar conclusions on colour, shape, materials and meaning. Prompting a trialogue between artists, the presentation will explore themes of language, abstraction, geometry and appropriation.
Physical reconfiguration remains central subject matters to Nevelson's works. Inspired by Cubism, Nevelson took scraps of wood and other materials found on the street near her studio and assembled them into free-standing and wall-mounted sculpture that she would paint a solid colour—most famously, black, white and gold. Nevelson's sculptures on view range from small assemblages to free-standing columns and monumental wall-based works consisting of multiple assembled elements. Although the physical form of the scraps remains unchanged in her work, Nevelson physically subsumes them in an entire system, creating a unified whole from disparate parts. Highlights of the exhibition include a rare untitled gold painted wood sculpture from 1960-1961, and Small Cities which explores her rapport with architecture and cities. Nevelson even ventured into poetry for the exhibition catalogue of her exhibition at Claude Bernard Galerie in 1986 for which she wrote a poem about the city of Paris with Diana Mackown. The exhibition will also focus on Nevelson's acclaimed wall relief assemblages, composed of carboard, paint, and wood collage ranging from 1957 to 1985. A rare documentary titled the Clés du regard, Louise Nevelson : Ma vie comme un collage (61), by French Director Pierre Koralnik will be screened in the gallery. Lastly, initiated by Laurent Bouvier, Director of MAMCO, the Sculpture Garden Biennale will feature Nevelson's majestic Maquette for Transparent Horizon from 9 June to 16 September in the Parc des Eaux-Vives, in Geneva.
Pendleton's conceptual practice engages with abstraction and identity through a wide range of media. Often referencing artistic and political movements, including Dada, Minimalism, and Conceptualism, Pendleton appropriates and reconfigures images and texts to critically examine the resonance of ideas from varied perspectives. Pendleton selects images from a wide range of historical and contemporary references, which he photocopies and then crops to create silkscreens. Pendleton's Untitled (code poem) work test the boundaries between the materiality of sculpture and the abstraction of language. Pendleton's oeuvre reflects an assimilation of fragments from sources ranging from Hugo Ball's 1916 Dada manifesto to Ron Sillman's poetry to his own writing, which also mirrors Nevelson's assemblages.
The ideas of 'Conceptual Art' introduced by Sol LeWitt in the 1960s sought to set art free from the shackles of formalism, and his radical practice had a profound and widespread influence on the artists of his generation and beyond including Pendleton. Experimenting with the cube as a 'grammatical device,' LeWitt's work is characterised by serialisation, repetition, and progression, exemplified by his iconic open-grid structures, that echo Nevelson's myriad of variations. Studying systems of line and colour, his prolific output solidifies his engagement with two-dimensional practices spanning painting, drawing, photography, and printmaking. For this exhibition, Pace will exhibit several never-before-seen gouaches on paper (A Square Within a Square with Colors Superimposed, 1988), as well as Pyramid#10, a sublime triangular white sculpture.
LeWitt, Nevelson, Pendleton extends Pace's ongoing series of group exhibitions that initiate conversations between artists working across time periods, geography, and media, following such significant exhibitions as Blackness in Abstraction (2016), Sol LeWitt and Zhang Xiaogang (2016), Alfred Jensen/Sol LeWitt: Systems and Transformation (2012), Light, Time and Three Dimensions (2007), Dubuffet and Basquiat: Personal Histories (2006); and Grids: Format and Image in 20th-Century Art (1979).
Press release courtesy Pace Gallery.
Quai des Bergues 15-17, 1201
Geneva
Switzerland
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