Thaddaeus Ropac

Extended at Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Marais until 27 July 2024: Irving Penn, Edge of Beauty. A collaborative exhibition by Thaddaeus Ropac gallery and Pace Gallery, ‘Edge of Beauty’ showcases Irving Penn’s iconic and lesser-known beauty images, celebrating his enduring influence on the history of photography. Penn’s photographs are consistently characterised by their formal beauty. His sparse compositions and juxtaposition of sharp line with soft flesh create images that are visually arresting, even – or especially – when they verge on the grotesque or painful. ‘Bee on Lips’ (1995) is an extreme close-up of a bee crawling across a vividly rouged mouth. Emblematic of Penn’s use of visual puns, it refers to the expression ‘bee-stung lips’, used to refer to the fashion for plumped lips. @the.irving.penn.foundation #IrvingPenn #ThaddaeusRopac #PaceGallery Image: Bee on Lips, New York, 1995 (print made in 1999). Dye transfer print. 40.3 x 57.2 cm (15.87 x 22.52 in).

On view at Paris Marais & now online: Not Vital, Contemplating. The pared-back compositions of Swiss artist Not Vital’s new series of self-portraits propose a minimalistic, abstract take on the human form. In this exhibition, these are shown alongside a selection of the artist’s sculptures across mediums, including works rooted in the landscape and a life-sized rendering of Nijinsky’s ‘last jump’, as well as collages on paper that recreate natural formations using everyday materials. Together, these works form a meditation on selfhood and on our relationship with the surrounding world. Explore the exhibition online and watch the full interview with the artist via the link in our bio. Visit the exhibition until 27 July 2024. @fundaziun.notvital #NotVital #ArtBasel #ThaddaeusRopac

On view at @cacpasserelle in Brest, France: Han Bing, 7:77. ‘7:77’ is the first solo exhibition at a European institution by Han Bing, who takes inspiration from the textures and patterns that appear in cities - especially the ‘errors’ and ‘glitches’ generated by ripped posters. For the artist, ‘painting is a way to resist all the information that is being forced on us’. ‘I take something that is meant to be ignored or quickly forgotten and turn it into something that makes me wonder and linger. That is my way of combating the feeling of being overwhelmed by all the information that is thrown at us on a daily basis,’ she says. The enigmatic title of the exhibition is a sort of mantra. Seven is a sacred number in Taoism and Buddhism. It symbolises enlightenment, spiritual awakening and connection with the divine. Visit the exhibition until 14 September 2024. #HanBing #CACPasserelle #ThaddaeusRopac Images: 1. Han Bing, Perpetual stew, 2024. Acrylic and oil on linen. 172.7 x 203.2 cm (67.99 x 80 in). 2 & 4. Han Bing, 7:77, installation view, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain, Brest, 2024. Photo: Aurélien Mole. 3. Han Bing, Clay park, 2024. Acrylic and oil on linen. 177.8 x 143 cm (70 x 56.3 in).

Just opened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York: Alex Katz, Seasons. The monumental paintings featured in ‘Seasons’ chronicle the changing of the seasons, from the vibrant colors of spring, summer, and fall to the stark palette of winter. These works belong to a new suite of more than 100 paintings created by Alex Katz in his New York studio since 2022. The artist draws inspiration from his immediate surroundings, whether a lone tree encountered on Houston Street on the way home from the cinema, or the lush landscape of Maine, where Katz has spent his summers since 1954. ‘The sensation of color is what I wanted,’ he says. ‘It’s the sensation of seeing.’ The exhibition celebrates the artist’s ever-evolving approach to interpreting the natural world. He often begins with photographs, taken with an iPhone, and smaller painted sketches, which he transforms into large-scale compositions. In many instances, Katz removes the horizon; its absence, paired with the paintings’ large scale, creates an environment with no clear beginning or end. Visit the exhibition until 8 September 2024. Read a recent interview with the artist for MoMA Magazine via the link in our bio. @alexkatzofficial #AlexKatz #MoMANYC #ThaddaeusRopac Images: 1. Alex Katz, Spring, 2023 (detail). Oil on linen. 304.8 x 640.1 cm (120 x 252 in). Photo: David Regen. 2 & 4. Installation view of Alex Katz: Seasons, on view at The Museum of Modern Art from July 4 through September 8, 2024. Photo: Emile Askey. 3. Alex Katz, Summer 21, 2023. Oil on linen. 274.3 x 487.7 cm (108 x 192 in). All images © Alex Katz / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Now open at Museo Guggenheim Bilbao: A retrospective exhibition by Martha Jungwirth, featuring nearly seventy works that encompass six decades of work. Spanning 1976 to 2023, the works on view include watercolors and oil paintings as well as three artist books, each informed by close observation of the human form, animals, the history of art, and extensive travel around the world. These areas of inspiration are echoed in the four chapters of the exhibition. Jungwirth consistently finds inspiration in a wide spectrum of painters, encompassing both celebrated figures and those less prominently featured in the canon. Her series of paintings inspired by artists like Richard Gerstl, Frans Hals, and Oskar Kokoschka exemplify her expansive exploration of art history. In her latest works, she looks to the masterpieces of Francisco de Goya and Édouard Manet, infusing them with her distinctive artistic vocabulary, resulting in radical departures from the original sources. Amid this convergence of historical narratives and contemporary interpretations, her ongoing experiments with the materiality of paint remain evident striking a balance between gesture and open space, abstraction and realism. Visit the exhibition until 22 September 2024. #MarthaJungwirth @museoguggenheim #ThaddaeusRopac Images: Martha Jungwirth, exhibition views, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 2024. Courtesy Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. © Martha Jungwirth / Bildrecht, Wien 2024.

Coming soon to Salzburg Villa Kast: Anselm Kiefer, Mein Rhein. ‘Mein Rhein (My Rhine)’ presents new works by Anselm Kiefer that pay homage to the Rhine River and its surrounding woodlands – the place of the artist’s childhood. Kiefer grew up in the Black Forest region in close proximity to the river, and its east bank was the site of many of his early adventures. Marking the border with France, the Rhine held a great fascination for the artist, while simultaneously representing an end point to his world at the time. Visit the exhibition from 26 July—28 September 2024. #AnselmKiefer #ThaddaeusRopac Images: Anselm Kiefer, Anselm fuit hic, 2023. Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, gold leaf and sediment of electrolysis. 190 x 280 cm (74.8 x 110.24 in).

Now in its final weeks in Salzburg: Georg Baselitz, adler barfuß. This new series of paintings and ink drawings features eagles – a motif that has resurfaced in Georg Baselitz’s oeuvre throughout his life. Baselitz’s works can almost always be tied to his experiences and impressions during his childhood in Dresden and the ensuing formative years he spent in Berlin. By revisiting the motifs of his past, Baselitz offers a reflection on the significance of painting itself. Asked about this self-referentiality, he stated: ‘I kept sinking into myself, and everything I do is being pulled out of myself.’ The birds seen in the two largest works in the exhibition are depicted against a mountain range, referring back to the artist’s first ever rendition of the subject, which he painted at the young age of 15. As curator Andreas Zimmermann observes, ‘the importance Baselitz attaches to this early work, done when he was still a schoolboy, is evident from the fact that over the decades he has repeatedly returned to it.’ Visit at Salzburg Villa Kast until Saturday 20 July 2024. Explore the exhibition online and watch an interview with the artist via the link in our bio. #GeorgBaselitz #ThaddaeusRopac Images: Georg Baselitz, adler barfuß, installation view, Thaddaeus Ropac Salzburg Villa Kast, 2024. Photo: Ulrich Ghezzi.

On view in Paris & now online: Sean Scully, Carbon and Air. Bringing together works on paper by Irish-born, American artist Sean Scully produced within the past year with historical drawings dating from the 1960s to the 1980s, Carbon and Air spans rare figurative works as well as testifying to the evolution of some of the artist’s best-known abstract series, ‘Wall of Light’ and ‘Landline’. ‘In the process of drawing, you tend to try to release the inherent qualities of light that are already in the paper. You want to be able to scribble in a way that releases light. And for that, you don’t really need colour. I think all abstract painters are interested in light in one way or another, teasing it out and trying to conjure it up. Even paintings that are made very matter-of-factly or conceptually, they still tend to radiate light to some degree. That’s fundamental to painting, always has been, since cave painted.’ — Sean Scully Watch the full interview with the artist and explore the exhibition online via the link in our bio. Visit the exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Marais until 27 July 2024. @seanscullystudio #SeanScully #ThaddaeusRopac

Coming soon to Salzburg Halle: The first exhibition of the late Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn (1920–2012) since the gallery announced representation earlier this year. Josephsohn’s work is characterised by his lifelong preoccupation with the human form. Over the course of six decades, he developed a wholly unique visual language that defies categorisation and has been impactful both on his contemporaries and the following generation of artists. A major retrospective curated by Albert Oehlen will open in October 2024 at the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris. #HansJosephsohn #ThaddaeusRopac

Now open at the Sehwa Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea: James Rosenquist, Universe. Presented in collaboration with the Estate of James Rosenquist, ‘Universe’ is the first retrospective of the artist’s work in Korea, encompassing paintings, collages, and archival materials from the 1960s to the 2010s that have not previously been on display in Korea. Rosenquist became known in the 1960s as a leading American Pop artist alongside Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and others. While each developed a distinct style, there were commonalities in their approaches to image-making that helped define the Pop art movement: the use of commercial art techniques and the depiction of popular imagery and everyday objects. ‘There’s so much we know nothing about. Here we are in our natural environment and the mysteries of the universe are all around us. I want to paint these mysteries.’ — James Rosenquist @jamesrosenquist @sehwamoa #JamesRosenquist #ThaddaeusRopac Images: 1 & 3. James Rosenquist, Universe, installation view, Sehwa Museum of Art, 2024. 2. James, Rosenquist, An Intrinsic Existence, 2015. Oil on canvas with painted and rotatable mirror. 205.7 x 170.2 cm (81 x 67 in). 4. James Rosenquist, The Serenade for the Doll after Claude Debussy, Gift Wrapped Doll #8, 1992. Oil on canvas. 152 x 152 cm (60 x 60 in).

Now in its final weeks, Richard Deacon’s exhibition at the Peter Marino Art Foundation in Southampton, New York, is the largest presentation of the artist’s wood sculptures to date. Material specificity lies at the heart of the artist’s practice, and he finds great freedom in the unpredictability of the surface of wood. Constituting a precisely engineered, intricate construction, the sculptures in Deacon’s ‘Under The Weather’ series are characterised by a twisting and sensuous composition. Seeming at once fixed and fluid, the complex shape created by steamed wood components explore the physical qualities of the material, testing out the potential forms that can be achieved through the act of fabrication. As Peter Marino has stated, his wooden works ‘look movemented and elegant and almost elegiac’. Visit the exhibition until 13 July 2024. 
 #RichardDeacon @PeterMarinoArtFoundation #PeterMarinoArtFoundation #ThaddaeusRopac Images: Richard Deacon, installation view, Peter Marino Foundation, 2024.

Now open at @kettlesyard in Cambridge: Megan Rooney, Echoes and Hours. 

Marking the first major solo exhibition in the UK by Megan Rooney, ‘Echoes and Hours’ features entirely new work, including a series of interrelated works on canvas, a collaborative dance performance and a site-specific mural. 

Unfolding over three chapters, the exhibition opens with a new family of paintings that embody the artist’s fascination with weather patterns. As colours chase one another between canvases, splashes of viridian green and alizarin orange intersperse with lemon yellow and ultramarine, suggesting a swelling storm, a mossy path or a city cast in winter light, though each mark is ambiguously referential. 

Guided tours will take place on: 
Thursday 4, 11 & 18 July 2024, 1–1.45pm 
Thursday 8 August 2024, 1–1.45pm 
Thursday 19 September 2024, 1–1.45pm 

Visit the exhibition until 6 October 2024. 

#MeganRooney 
#KettlesYard 
#ThaddaeusRopac 

Images: 1, 3 & 5. Megan Rooney, Echoes and Hours, installation view, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, 2024. 2. Megan Rooney, Up Comes Yesterday, 2024 (detail). Acrylic, oil, pastel and oil stick on canvas. 199.6 x 152.3 cm (78.6 x 60 in) 4. Megan Rooney, Old Sky (Blue), 2024 (detail). Acrylic, oil, pastel and oil stick on canvas. 160 x 320 cm (63 x 126 in). Photos: Eva Herzog.