Opening reception:
Friday, June 9, 6–8PM

Gagosian is pleased to present “Helen Frankenthaler: After Abstract Expressionism, 1959–1962.” The first major exhibition of Frankenthaler’s work in Paris in more than fifty years, it includes paintings and works on paper, several of which have not been exhibited since the early 1960s.

Comprising fourteen paintings and two works on paper, the exhibition explores a radical, lesser-known body of work, picking up at the very end of the period in Frankenthaler’s career treated in “Painted on 21^st Street: Helen Frankenthaler from 1950 to 1959” at Gagosian West 21^st Street, in 2013. The works in the 2013 exhibition revealed Frankenthaler’s invention of the technique of pouring and brushing turpentine-thinned paint so that it soaked into raw canvas. In contrast, the current exhibition reveals her deliberate return to the gestural improvisation of Abstract Expressionism, as a way of moving her practice forward. John Elderfield, borrowing the term from an early critic, the poet James Schuyler, calls the first group of paintings from 1959–60 “think-tough, paint-tough,” characterized by imposing scale and vigorously expressive brushwork. They include the mural-like, freely painted First Creatures (1959), an abstract, indeterminate landscape exhibited here for the first time, as well as Mediterranean Thoughts (1960), in which Frankenthaler’s looping skeins of poured paint create partitions of varying sizes, many filled, or almost filled, with several different colors, leaving very little exposed canvas.

By 1961–62, Frankenthaler had moved on to make paintings that were quieter and more calligraphic. Coinciding with her first forays into printmaking, graphic paintings like Italian Beach (1960) and May Scene (1961) employ an economy of line not commonly seen in her earlier works. Their simplicity is heightened by areas of canvas left bare, larger than those in the paintings of the 1950s. In some canvases in this group, the unpainted negative spaces are shaped like silhouettes of swans. When this imagery appeared in her work, Frankenthaler embraced it, saying: “At some point I recognized a birdlike shape—I was ready for it—and I developed it from there.”

This is the fourth exhibition of Frankenthaler’s work to be presented by Gagosian, following “Painted on 21^st Street: Helen Frankenthaler from 1950 to 1959,” New York (2013); “Helen Frankenthaler: Composing with Color: Paintings 1962–1963,” New York (2014); and “Line into Color, Color into Line: Helen Frankenthaler, Paintings, 1962–1987,” Beverly Hills (2016).

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual, fully illustrated catalogue, including a new essay by John Elderfield.

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011), whose career spanned six decades, has long been recognized as one of the great American artists of the twentieth century. She was eminent among the second generation of postwar American abstract painters and is widely credited for playing a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting. Through her invention of the soak-stain technique, she expanded the possibilities of abstract painting, while at times referencing figuration and landscape in unique ways. She produced a body of work whose impact on contemporary art has been profound and continues to grow. Her works are in major museums and collections worldwide, and her career has been the subject of three major monographs and numerous institutional exhibitions, including “Helen Frankenthaler: Paintings,” The Jewish Museum, New York (1960); “Helen Frankenthaler,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1969, traveled to Whitechapel Gallery, London; Orangerie Herrenhausen, Hanover; and Kongresshalle, Berlin); “Helen Frankenthaler: A Paintings Retrospective,” Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (1989–90, traveled to Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Detroit Institute of Arts); “Helen Frankenthaler: Prints,” National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1993, traveled to San Diego Museum of Fine Arts; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; and Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, Japan); “Frankenthaler: Paintings on Paper (1949–2002),” Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL (2004, traveled to Edinburgh Royal Scottish Academy, Scotland); “Against the Grain: the Woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler,” National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2005); and “Giving Up One’s Mark: Helen Frankenthaler in the 1960s and 1970s,” Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2014–15).

“Fluid Expressions: The Prints of Helen Frankenthaler,” is on view at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, through September 10. “As in Nature: Helen Frankenthaler Paintings” and “No Rules: Helen Frankenthaler Woodcuts” will open at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on July 1, 2017.

Courtesy of Gagosian Paris – Press Release

The oeuvre of the prominent artist Andres Serrano (New York, 1950) is both provocative and fascinating. In terms of scale, composition and subject matter his works of art show strong similarities to the work of the Old Masters, but unlike these old paintings Serrano’s work confronts us powerfully and directly with contemporary reality. Serrano has a deep interest in the condition humaine, which he photographs in ways that are both moving and unsettling, but he passes no judgements. Revealing Reality is the first large Dutch exhibition of Andres Serrano’s work in twenty years. The exhibition includes a collection of works from Serrano’s newest series Torture, Denizens of Brussels and the Residents of New York, together with photographs drawn from the earlier series Bodily Fluids, Cuba, The Church, Nomads and Holy Works, among others. Serrano has a master’s hand that is particularly evident in his portraits. In the various themes explored in his wide-ranging oeuvre Andres Serrano lays bare the reality of human existence, following us from the gutter to the stars.

Unsettling subjects

Andres Serrano feels akin to the baroque painters, such as Caravaggio, who is known to have been willing to employ a prostitute to model for a Madonna – something that caused quite a controversy at the time. Serrano feels this kindred spirit with the Old Masters because he shares their themes, which they gave form within a Christian tradition. Serrano passes no judgement on the people he portrays. Andres Serrano has created several projects on homelessness: Nomads (1990), Residents of New York (2014) and most recently Denizens of Brussels (2015). He photographed the ‘Nomads’ at night in the NYC subway in a makeshift studio – lighting, a tripod, and background. In 2014 Serrano photographed the homeless on the streets of New York City and called them Residents of New York to acknowledge them as ‘residents of the city’ rather them use the ‘homeless’ cliché. In 2015 he followed this series up with portraits of homeless people in Brussels, who he called its ‘Denizens.’ According to Webster’s Dictionary denizens are defined as ‘creatures (whether people, plants, animals, or bacteria) that take possession of a given location or region.’ In the Brussels series they look more like actors who have made the street their stage. The Huis Marseille exhibition includes photographs taken from all these series. Whereas paintings emerge in large part from the painter’s imagination, Serrano’s work – though almost painterly in scale and composition – confronts us powerfully and directly with contemporary reality.

‘Fatima’, was Imprisoned and Tortured in Sudan (Torture), 2015, 1/3 (edition of / editie van 3 + 2 AP) © Andres Serrano. Courtesy Andres Serrano & Galerie Nathalie Obadia Paris/Bruxelles

Capturing essence in a portrait

Serrano’s portraits reveal the hand of a master, whose relationship with his subjects begins the moment they are in front of the camera. He immediately works to discover the feelings, thoughts and motives of his models so as to capture their essence. For instance, through the NGO Waging Peace, which campaigns against genocide and the systematic abuse of human rights in Africa, Serrano first met Fatima, whose portrait is part of the series Torture (2015). Fatima had been tortured in the Sudan, on suspicion of having assisted the rebels. She uses her veil to smother her cry and to hide the trauma in her eyes.

In 2012 Serrano paid his first visit to Cuba, where his mother – who was born in the US – spent much of her childhood. In his series Cuba (2012) he penetrates to the heart of Cuban society, portraying Cubans from all walks of life. While he ultimately failed to get Fidel Castro in front of the camera, he created a number of memorable portraits of other well-known Cubans.

The material and the immaterial

Christian symbolism plays an important role in Andres Serrano’s work. He grew up in a Catholic neighbourhood where religious traditions were woven into daily life, and the symbols of the Roman Catholic church recur in his projects in many different ways – as in his early series Bodily Fluids (1986–1987), in which he used photography to transform blood, milk, urine and semen into abstract artworks. Set alongside his other works – in particular the series The Church (1991), Budapest (1994), Holy Works (2011) and Jerusalem (2014) – these abstract works give a deeper meaning to his oeuvre. They lend his photographic registration of a variety of subjects – and no subject is shunned – a deeper and broader perspective. Love, death, sex, pain, grief and torture are revealed as the core of human existence. Serrano’s extensive oeuvre, which shows us the reality of human existence at every level, reminds us that while the material and the immaterial may appear to be separate entities, they are, in fact, intimately connected.

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Johnny (Nomads), 1990, 4/4 (editie van 4 + 2 AP) © Andres Serrano. Courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia Parijs/Brussel

Andres Serrano (New York, 1950) studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School from 1967–1969 and lives in New York City. He recently had solo exhibitions at the Red Brick Musuem Beijing (Beijing, 2017), the Petit Palais (Paris, 2017), the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris, 2016), the Collection Lambert (Avignon, 2016), the Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique (Brussels, 2015) and the Fotografiska Museum in Stockholm (2015). In 1997 the Groninger Museum included his photographs in the exhibition A History of Sex. Serrano’s work has been acquired by many public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington DC), the Israel Museum of Jerusalem, the Collection Lambert (Avignon) and Huis Marseille, Amsterdam.

June 10 – September 3, 2017

Huis Marseille

Keizersgracht 401
1016 EK Amsterdam

www.huismarseille.nl

Press Release: Courtesy of Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam