Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website Gagosian to Participate in TEFAF New York Spring 2022 with a Special Installation Featuring Paintings by Urs Fischer and Man Ray
may 04, 2022 - Gagosian Gallery

Gagosian to Participate in TEFAF New York Spring 2022 with a Special Installation Featuring Paintings by Urs Fischer and Man Ray

NEW YORK, May 4, 2022—Gagosian is pleased to announce its participation in TEFAF #newyork Spring 2022, with a special presentation juxtaposing paintings by #ursfischer and #manray.

Two artworks, hung in opposite corners of the stand, beckon to one another, engaging in a silent dialogue. On one wall is Man Ray's Les grands-trans-parents (c. 1970–75), a consummate example of the artist's enduring interest in Surrealist imagery and concepts since the 1920s. This work comprises a decorative oval mirror mounted on a sage green velvet support, with the enigmatic phrase of the title scrawled by the artist in black ink on the glass surface. The writing playfully refers to André Breton's concept of the "Great Transparents," unseen entities that were thought to cause illogical events in the world. As the text's placement intentionally eclipses visual access to a viewer's image—thereby thwarting the key function of a mirror—Les grands-trans-parents wittily captures the Surrealist desire to estrange the everyday world, drawing out extraordinary elements from ordinary objects or situations.

This strategy of using incongruous elements to induce new meanings is elaborated as well in the work located on the stand's opposing wall. As an example of the artist's celebrated Problem Paintings, Urs Fischer's Grilled (2010) comprises a black-and-white vintage publicity still of an Old Hollywood screen siren that is supplanted by an enlarged color image of a bent stainless-steel spoon. Fischer's tactical placement of the utensil obscures the identity of the actress, refracting the viewer's gaze to instead draw out formal elements of the composition.

Using key techniques introduced by the Surrealist movement—such as illogical juxtapositions, changes of scale, and dislocation of objects from their typical contexts—both Man Ray's Les grands-trans-parents and Fischer's Grilled disrupt established visual orders to awaken the viewer to the remarkable strangeness that exists in the world around us. As such, Gagosian's joint presentation of these two works at TEFAF offers a unique opportunity to consider points of conceptual similarity and difference, creating a deeper reflection on each respective work. When facing one another, Les grands-trans-parents and Grilled develop a provocative interplay, inspiring the viewer to see the world—in all its fantastic contradictions—anew.

Urs Fischer was born in Zurich and lives and works in #newyork. Collections include the Museum of Modern Art, #newyork; Museum of #contemporaryart, Los Angeles; Fondation Carmignac, Paris; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels; Kunstmuseum Basel; FRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Marseille, France; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; and Museo d'arte della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland. Exhibitions include Marguerite de Ponty, New Museum, #newyork (2009–10); 54th Biennale di Venezia (2011); Skinny Sunrise, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2012); Madame Fisscher, Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2012); Museum of #contemporaryart, Los Angeles (2013); YES, DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra, Greece (2013); Small Axe, Garage Museum of #contemporaryart, Moscow (2013); Mon cher..., Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, France (2016); and The Public & the Private, Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2017).

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky) was born in Philadelphia in 1890, and died in Paris in 1976. Exhibitions include Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (1971, traveled to Musée national d'art moderne, Paris, and Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, Denmark, in 1972); Philadelphia Museum of Art (1972); Metropolitan Museum of Art, #newyork (1972); Centre Pompidou, Paris (1981); Perpetual Motif: The Art of Man Ray, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC (traveled, 1988–89); A Practical Dreamer: The Photographs of #manrayJ. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (1998); Photography and its Double, Centre Pompidou, Paris (1998, traveled, 1998–99); Unconcerned But Not Indifferent, PHotoESPAÑA, Museo Colecciones ICO, Madrid (2007, traveled, 2007–2010); and African Art Through the Modernist Lens, Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (2009–10, traveled, 2010–11).


You might be interested in

september 08, 2022
august 29, 2022
june 02, 2015

NEW YORK, September 8, 2022—Gagosian is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by #ursfischer in New York, coinciding with ...

SEOUL, August 29, 2022—Gagosian is pleased to participate in the inaugural edition of Frieze #seoul with a presentation of works b...

PRESS RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLY IN ITALIAN The first step in the program is the exhibition Percezioni Visive (Visual Perceptions), fe...