R. H. QUAYTMAN An Evening. Chapter 32

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Press release R. H. QUAYTMAN An Evening. Chapter 32 November 17, 2017 January 28, 2018 Press conference: Thursday, November 16, 2017, 11 a.m. Opening: Thursday, November 16, 2017, 7 p.m. In the Secession s main gallery, the American artist R.

1 Press release R. H. QUAYTMAN An Evening. Chapter 32 November 17, 2017 January 28, 2018 Press conference: Thursday, November 16, 2017, 11 a.m. Opening: Thursday, November 16, 2017, 7 p.m. In the Secession s main gallery, the American artist R. H. Quaytman has developed a frieze comprising twenty-two paintings on wood panels titled An Evening. Chapter 32. These paintings are placed on two walls that form a forty-five-degree angle. The combined measurements of the two walls equal the length of Klimt s Beethoven Frieze, which the artist references in various ways for this chapter. Like the architectural plans for several previous exhibitions, this configuration is based on the figure of the open book and reinforces one-point perspective. In addition to referencing the site of the Secession, Quaytman used two paintings by the Flemish Artist Otto van Veen ( ) as points of departure The Persian Women and Amazons and Scythians, both in the collections of Vienna s Kunsthistorisches Museum. After viewing these unusual and germane works in the restoration rooms at the KHM, Quaytman contributed financially to their restoration in exchange for access to photograph and the permission to include The Persian Women in this exhibition. The other painting, Amazons and Scythians, is currently on view in the KHM s exhibition devoted to van Veen s student Rubens. The Persian Women depicts an anecdote in Plutarch s Bravery of Women in which the women resort to a gesture of self-exposure upon discovering that their men are losing the battle for the city. Trying to return to their citadel, the defeated soldiers encounter all the women of their homes, who expose their genitals while shouting Whither are you rushing so fast, you biggest cowards in the whole world? Surely you cannot, in your flight, slink in here whence you came forth. Shocked by this sight and mortified by these words the soldiers are forced to return to battle to vanquish the enemy. The paintings in this chapter utilize a variety of techniques, beginning with a gesso ground of rabbit skin glue that is pigmented to resemble the plaster of the Beethoven Frieze. In some paintings, textile, tulle or netting, has been cut to resemble figures and embedded into the gesso, then sanded very smooth. The photographically based silkscreened images depict the fronts as well as backs of the two Otto van Veen paintings and a Polish landscape that the artist photographed last year while beginning the research for this chapter. Quaytman hones in on a dialectic inherent to painting between exposure and withdrawal as well as between biography and context. Since 2001, the artist has organized a painting practice of working in chapters as a structuring principle that guides the creation of an overarching corpus. Quaytman has also devised various standards and systems to determine the size, material, surface, and motifs of her 1

2 paintings. Rather than merely presenting the subject in an isolated picture, the paintings incorporate a method of composition based on a few preliminary rules. Archives and objects associated with the site of an exhibition often serve as a bridge between art-historical investigations and current reflections, a process that seems to generate its own version of history and how a painting is situated in the present. It is exemplified by the way Quaytman incorporates the reference: Then there is the subject, always wanting to be in a perspectival space, which is what I had to think about so intently with the van Veen paintings that inspired the whole thing: how to include them in a painting made now? I silkscreened photographs I had taken of both paintings on quite a few panels in order to experiment with how to paint on them or even not to paint on them. The idea of painting on photographically based images interests me very much and the act of painting on an old painting was liberating. Nevertheless there must be a reason to do it. For the two paintings included here I devised a trick to get me started. I projected Raimondi s historic engraving The Judgement of Paris onto both paintings and painted the outline of the myth over them. I often think about this image and what it evokes and the van Veens suggested in their composition and dimensions many affinities with the Raimondi. Incredibly the superimposition turned out to fit or align in many unexpected ways. It enabled me to find or summon a new narrative in the process of painting the painting. If a person or position or face or body part began to be visible I went with it. The lockdown of the judgment was released in a sense. Quaytman thwarts the perspectival pull of the gaze into the picture s imaginary distance by structuring the frieze to emphasize planarity and integrating rhythmic divisions and color fields extending across multiple panels. Two basic optical patterns permeate the installation, checkers and lines. There is also a large wedge shape articulated with Steinway Black lacquer spanning eleven of the twenty-two panels. This wedge shape produces an optical illusion of the nine paintings on the left wall continuing in space through the wall on the right. As the overall composition underscores, Quaytman understands paintings not solely as autonomous objects but also as parts of an ensemble that acknowledge the conditions under which they are produced, presented, seen, and circulated. Although each painting is autonomous, their context is of equal value. The ways Quaytman has found to continue painting are based in many ways on concepts often discussed around feminism the subversion of authorship, hierarchy, and the picture s promise of a subject, a subject that historically is tied to the objectification of female bodies through a typically male authoritarian gaze. R. H. Quaytman, born in Boston, lives and works in New York City. The exhibition program is conceived by the board of the Secession. Curator: Annette Südbeck 2

3 Exhibition cooperation: The exhibition of R. H. Quaytman was produced in cooperation with Phileas A Fund for Contemporary Art. Solo exhibitions (selection) 2016 R.H. Quaytman The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles 2015 R.H. Quaytman Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv;,הקק Chapter 29 Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York; Preis, Chapter 28 with Michael Krebber, Wolfgang Hahn Prize, Museum Ludwig, Cologne 2014 O Tópico, Chapter 27 Gladstone Gallery, New York 2013 Passing Through The Opposite of What it Approaches, Chapter 25, The Renaissance Society, Chicago 2012 Point de Gaze, Chapter 23 Gladstone Gallery, Brussels; Dalet, Chapter 24 Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany 2011 Spine, Chapter 20 Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; Cherchez Holopherne, Chapter 21 Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne 2010 Spine, Chapter 20 Neuberger Museum of Art, New York; Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Nova, Miguel Abreu Gallery, Miami; I Love The Eyelid Clicks / I See / Cold Poetry, Chapter 18 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Silberkuppe, Chapter 17 Silberkuppe, Berlin 2009 Exhibition Guide, Chapter 15 Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston Group exhibitions (selection) 2017 documenta 14, Benaki Museum, Athens 2016 Manifesta 11, Zurich 2015 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2014 Centre Pompidou, Paris 2013 Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna 2012 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York th International Art Exhibition, Venice Bienale Exhibition talk/artist talk Thursday, November 16, 2017, 6 p.m. R. H. Quaytman in conversation with Joseph Koerner An event of the Friends of the Secession (in English) Curator s tour Friday, December 1, 2017, 5 p.m. With the curators Annette Südbeck and Bettina Spörr through the exhibtions by R. H. Quaytman and Olga Chernysheva 3

4 Publication Elfriede Jelinek IN AND FOR HERSELF 24 pages Format: 180 x 290 mm Details: Softcover with dust jacket Concept: R. H. Quaytman Secession 2017 EUR 5,- This text is published as an advance copy from the artist s book R. H. Quaytman. An Evening. Chapter 32 Date of publication: December 11, 2017 R. H. Quaytman An Evening. Chapter 32 Format: 180x290 mm Details: Hardcover, Japanese binding Concept: R. H. Quaytman Images: R. H. Quaytman Text: Elfriede Jelinek Secession 2017 Distribution: Revolver Publishing EUR 42,90 Press images Installation views are available for download: Press contact Susanne Fernandes Silva T F presse@secession.at secession Wiener Secession, Association of Visual Artists Friedrichstraße 12, A-1010 Vienna, Austria T , F office@secession.at, Tuesday Sunday 10 am 6 pm Permanent presentation: Gustav Klimt, Beethoven Frieze 4

5 Public funding and supporters: Cooperation-, media partners, sponsors: 5

6 List of works 1. Oil, Marshall s photo oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 2. Oil, textile, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 3. Oil, textile, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 4. Silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 5. Silkscreen ink, textile, gesso on wood; panel on top: textile, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 2 inches 6. Oil, textile, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 7. Copper powder, silkscreen ink, textile, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 8. Silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 9. Oil, Marshall s photo oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 10. Oil, Marshall s photo oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 11. Oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 12. Lacquer, oil, iron powder, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 13. Lacquer, oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 14. Lacquer, oil, textile, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 15. Lacquer, oil, textile, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 16. Lacquer, silkscreen ink, textile, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 17. Lacquer, textile, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 6

7 17b. Silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 37 1/16 x 1 1/4 inches; Lacquer on wooden shelf, 37 1/16 x 4 x 1 1/4 inches 18. Lacquer, oil, textile, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 19. Lacquer, oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 20. Lacquer, oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 21. Lacquer, oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 22. Lacquer, oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 37 1/16 x 60 x 1 1/4 inches 23. Gold leaf, Marshall s photo oil, oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 32 3/8 x 20 x 1 inches 24. Marshall s photo oil, oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 20 x 12 3/8 x 1 1/4 inches; wooden shelf, 24 3/4 x 4 x 1 inches 25. Silkscreen ink, Marshall s photo oil, oil, gesso on wood, 32 3/8 x 32 3/8 x 1 inches 26. Marshall s photo oil, oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 32 3/8 x 32 3/8 x 1 1/4 inches 27. Marshall s photo oil, oil, silkscreen ink, gesso on wood, 32 3/8 x 20 x 1 inches All works: Courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz (Berlin/Cologne/New York) 28. Otto van Veen Persian Women, 1597/1599 Oil on wood x x 1 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie 7

DANIEL GORDON Selective Color April 28 June 17, 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DANIEL GORDON Selective Color April 28 June 17, 2017 Opening Reception Friday, April 28, 2017 from 6 to 8 pm M+B is pleased to present : Selective Color, the artist's second solo