Highlight #27: Splendid 2015, Upcoming 2016

Closing out the year in the US, Sweden, Germany and the UK

U.S., New York <ROBERT RYMAN>

9 December 2015 ~ 18 June 2016_Dia:Chelsea

Robert Ryman(b.1930) is holding his second solo exhibition. This comprehensive exhibition encompasses six decades of the artist’s paintings, ranging from the 1950s to the 2000s. He has been working with readily identified and identifiable achromatic surfaces since turn of the 20th century. Early on, his experimentations with canvas, board and paper expanded to include aluminum, fiberglass and Plexiglas. Ryman evolved a material vocabulary that is as revolutionary as his use of various white hues, and is often discussed in relation to Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, as well as Post-Minimalism.

His notion of painting is extended into three dimensions, where materiality engages and corresponds with the architectural elements of a gallery space. A highlight of the exhibition will be his three-dimensional works, which had never been fully shown to the public before. Also included are some of Ryman's signature innovations, including one of the first paintings in which he incorporated fasteners into the composition, a painting on aluminum, and a painting in baked porcelain on copper panels completed in the 1970s.

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1958 Photo: Bill Jacobson courtesy The Greenwich Collection, Ltd., ⓒ Robert Ryman/Artists Rights Society(ARS), New York
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1959 Photo: Bill Jacobson courtesy The Greenwich Collection, Ltd., ⓒ Robert Ryman/Artists Rights Society(ARS), New York
<Arrow>

1976 Photo: Bill Jacobson courtesy The Greenwich Collection, Ltd., ⓒ Robert Ryman/Artists Rights Society(ARS), New York

Sweden, Stockholm <MARTIN SCHOELLER: UP CLOSE>

2 October 2015 ~ 7 February 2016_Fotografiska

A renowned portrait photographer, Martin Schoeller’s pictures are onview at Fotografiska in Stockholm. Schoeller simultaneously captures uniqueness and universality in his photographs of subjects that range from the well-known—Barack Obama, Katie Perry, Hillary Clinton, Jay Z—to unspecified persons he met on the street. This exhibition presents four photographic series that are being shown to the public for the first time. Schoeller’s work is characterized by enthusiasm and warmth, displaying an inspiring and playful mood in addition to an extremely technical quality.

The artist uses flash to highlight a person’s eyes and mouth, focusing on what makes them unique. He captures that fleeting moment during which one reveals honesty, and creates a dialogue between conventional and unconventional images. He believes the photograph is a democratic endeavor that expands viewers’ perceptions of the world. Schoeller’s desire to examine the unseen leads to his ability to capture the true individual.

<Usain Bolt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art>

ⓒ Martin Schoeller

U.K., London <TIGHTROPE WALK: PAINTED IMAGES AFTER ABSTRACTION>

25 November 2015 ~ 24 January 2016_White Cube Bermondsey

This group exhibition introduces paintings by 50 artists in an endeavor to illuminate how the act of making a representational painting became refined over the past century. Since abstract paintings emerged as a competing proposition, representational painting has always been made in cognizance of abstraction, often incorporating aspects of it into a new synthesis. This exhibition draws on contentious encounters of figurative paintings and also presents the various ways that painters have revised their perception of representation’s possibilities.

The prevalence of abstraction has encouraged figurative painters to incorporate the geometry of the Constructivists and the free gesture of Abstract Expressionism, as well as mechanical reproduction. The title of this exhibition is borrowed from Francis Bacon, who explained his art to David Sylvester as "a kind of tightrope walk between what is called figurative and abstraction."
This exhibition features works by artists ranging from Matisse, Picasso and Duchamp to Alice Neel. Contemporaries include Georg Baselitz, Cecily Brown, Tracey Emin, and more.

Barkley L. Hendricks <The Twins>

1977 Oil and acrylic on canvas Diptych each 182.9×121.9cm ⓒ the artist Photo ⓒ Not given Courtesy Jack Shainmam Gallery and White Cube
Henri Matisse <Laurette au chalevert>

1917 Oil on canvas laid down on cardboard 41×33cm(framed 54.5×48.3cm) Succession H. Matisse/DACS 2015 Courtesy Thomas Gibson Fine Art

Germany, Stuttgart <ALBRECHT DÜRER AND LUCAS VAN LEYDEN: ART AND LIFE AROUND 1500>

15 November 2015 ~ 14 February 2016_Staatsgalerie

Albrecht Dürer(1471–1528) and Lucas Van Leyden(c. 1489/94–1533) first met in Antwerp in 1521. This exhibition compares the two artists’ print works. This comparison shows that Lucas van Leyden was not just an epigone, but adopted Dürer’s themes and executed them artistically, highly independently and often unconventionally. This exhibition highlights not the two artist’s well-known series such as Passions or Apocalypse but explores themes new to their times.

This includes Dürer’s early work around 1459 of couples in love and protagonists of mundane life, mirroring an interest in contemporary reality and social morality. Peasants depicted in the print medium presented models for the development of genre art, especially in the Netherlands. This exhibition also includes other popular themes in the early 16th century, such as saints depicted in landscapes and suspenseful Biblical stories in contemporary settings. Roughly 50 selected works by Dürer and van Leyden will provide insights into the histories of individual themes in art. ■ with ARTINPOST

Lucas van Leyden <Der Zahnarzt>

1523 Kupferstich Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung
Albrecht Durer <Der Koch und sein Weib>

um 1498 Kupferstich Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung