Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air) - Lévy Gorvy
  • Installation view of Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air) exhibition at Lévy Gorvy New York, 2019

    Installation view, Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air), Lévy Gorvy, New York, 2019. Photo: Farzad Owrang

  • Installation view of Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air) exhibition at Lévy Gorvy New York, 2019

    Installation view, Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air), Lévy Gorvy, New York, 2019. Right: Yombe People, Loango Kingdom. Nail Power Figure, 19th century. Wood, iron, resin, glass, fiber, textile and pigment, Height: 31 7/8 inches (81 cm). Image © Schweizer Premodern, New York. Private Collection. Courtesy of Schweizer Premodern, New York. Photo: Farzad Owrang

  • Installation view of Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air) exhibition at Lévy Gorvy New York, 2019

    Installation view, Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air), Lévy Gorvy, New York, 2019. Right: Terry Winters. Free Union, 1983. Oil on linen, 79 x 104 1/4 inches (201 x 265 cm). © Terry Winters, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery. Photo: Farzad Owrang

Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air)Exhibitions

New York
June 25 - August 16, 2019

 

#VisibleTraces

Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air)

This summer Lévy Gorvy is pleased to present Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air), an exhibition curated by the celebrated artist Pat Steir. The exhibition will include a selection of Steir’s paintings alongside numerous works the artist has said she “hums to” in her mind—art from centuries past, such as historical Chinese scrolls and Kongo sculpture, and works by artists with whom Steir has engaged in ongoing and inspiring dialogue. Following the January 2019 opening of Pat Steir: Silent Secret Waterfalls at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, and in anticipation of the artist’s site-specific suite of works to be unveiled in October 2019 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., this exhibition will span the two main floors of Lévy Gorvy’s landmark gallery at 909 Madison Avenue.

Central to the works Steir has selected for this exhibition are questions regarding the nature of abstraction. At what point does an image become abstract? Since she rose to prominence in the 1970s, Steir has channeled inspiration from East Asian art, Buddhist and Taoist philosophy, European Romanticism, American Minimalism, and Conceptualism into paintings that masterfully synthesize gesture, process, and reference. As Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu recently conveyed, “Steir’s signature, multilayered canvases have time and time again redefined what it means to be a contemporary painter. Working within a framework that is simultaneously both painterly and conceptual, she has continued to create radical and profound abstractions.”

Among the artists featured in Visible Traces will be the 18th-century Edo artists Hokusai and Hiroshige, 19th-century Romantic Victor Hugo, and 20th-century contemporaries such as Alighiero Boetti, Sol LeWitt, Cy Twombly, and Agnes Martin, whom Steir visited in New Mexico every August for thirty years. Works by Steir’s peers such as Joan Jonas, Mary Heilmann, Brice MardenHelen Marden, Julie Mehretu, Ugo Rondinone, Stanley Whitney, and Terry Winters will also be included in the exhibition. Together, the paintings and sculptures on view offer a framework in which to consider Steir’s long commitment to the radical freedom that she has explained as, “being more attached to the process than the conclusion.” This liberation has been forged through her relationships to other artists and artworks, through what she has learned from and with them about simplicity, chance, and structure. Visible Traces reveals something of this resonant, ahistorical exchange on such abiding concerns as the potential of paint, the nuance of method, and the resonance of affinity.

 

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Selected Works

  • Utagawa Hiroshige's woodblock print Night Rain at Karazaki (Karazaki no yau), ca. 1834

    Utagawa Hiroshige
    Night Rain at Karazaki (Karazaki no yau)
    ca. 1834
    Color woodblock print
    9¾ x 14½ inches (24.8 x 36.8 cm)

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  • Yombe People's sculpture Loango Kingdom Nail Power Figure, 19th Century

    Yombe People, Loango Kingdom
    Nail Power Figure
    19th century
    Wood, iron, resin, glass, fiber, textile and pigment
    Height: 31 7/8 inches (81 cm)
    Image © Schweizer Premodern, New York
    Private Collection
    Courtesy of Schweizer Premodern, New York

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  • Mary Heilmann painting: "Crashing Wave," 2017.

    Mary Heilmann
    Crashing Wave
    2017
    Acrylic on canvas
    8 x 8 x 5/8 inches (20.3 x 20.3 x 1.6 cm)
    Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; and Hauser & Wirth, London

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  • Alighiero Boetti's embroidery Map (Mettere il mondo al mondo [Putting the world into the world], 1983

    Alighiero Boetti
    Map (Mettere il mondo al mondo [Putting the world into the world]
    1983
    Embroidery on canvas
    45.375 x 71 x 1.125 inches (115.3 x 180.3 x 2.9 cm)
    Artwork © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

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  • Victor Hugo's drawing A Gothic Castle by a Lake, 1858

    Victor Hugo
    A Gothic Castle by a Lake
    1858
    Pen and black and brown ink and wash heightened with wash and crayon
    9 5/8 x 9 3/4 inches (24.4 x 24.8 cm)

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Selected Press

Blouin Artinfo | “Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air)” at Lévy Gorvy, New York

July 12, 2019

Levy Gorvy, New York is showing a group exhibition, “Visible Traces (Mountain Water Air)” through …

The New York Times | New York Galleries: What to See Right Now

July 9, 2019

Work by two women who made figurative paintings in the ’50s; short films and videos about black culture; …

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