Guillermo Kuitca
24 Apr - 21 Jun 2014
GUILLERMO KUITCA
This Way
24 April - 21 June 2014
New York, NY: 18 March 2014 -- New York, NY: Sperone Westwater is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Guillermo Kuitca, marking over 20 years of collaboration between the Argentinean artist and the gallery.
Kuitca's new paintings incorporate classic subject matter such as fragmentation and cartography with dynamic rhythms, most dramatically evidenced by Untitled, 2014, a room-like structure measuring approximately 8 1⁄2 x 10 x 7 1⁄2 feet. This major installation developed organically from an experience in the artist's studio. While working on a large scale, Kuitca felt that the geometric shapes necessitated an expansion beyond the borders of the canvas. Kuitca spontaneously started to extend the surface by painting directly onto the studio walls. The quasi-symmetrical structure Untitled is a continuation of this experience. The work’s outside is anonymous – wood panels are painted white, leaving traces of its construction visible. The viewer must enter inside the space and become immersed in Kuitca's mark-making to fully experience the painting. His paint handling echoes Modernist stylistic elements of cut and fractured forms that rhythmically activate the surface. Untitled envelops the viewer, encouraging contemplation.
The large collage Untitled, 2013, extends the technique of his earlier theater and opera house collages, while the work’s imagery derives from Kuitca’s paintings of fragmented road maps. The vivid abstraction is composed of paper fragments, large and small, scattered across the surface creating an arbitrary depiction of unreadable information. Unlike Kuitca's earlier cartographic works, the recent ones have no place names or orientation aids. Precise identification is precluded. The painting Desesperación y Aislamiento (Despair and Isolation), 2012, contains the complete caption information, listing artist, title, year, and technique – an ironic juxtaposition within the otherwise reference-less work. Lines go across the painting’s underlying geometrical structure like roads, creating a topography akin to that of maps.
In July 2014, the major retrospective “Guillermo Kuitca: Philosophy for Princesses” will open at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the oldest art museum in São Paulo. Consisting of nearly 50 works from 1980 to 2013, this exhibition will present Kuitca's career in the widest possible manner. It will include his largest installation to date, Le Sacre (1992), a celebrated work featuring 54 beds and newly acquired by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Guillermo Kuitca (born 1961, Buenos Aires) represented Argentina in the XVIII Bienal de São Paulo in 1989. He received significant international attention following the 1991 “Projects” show at MoMA, New York, and his installation of 20 beds at Documenta IX in 1992. In 2000, Kuitca presented a solo exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, followed in 2003 by a retrospective at the Reina Sofia in Madrid, which subsequently travelled to the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires (MALBA). At the 2007 Venice Biennale, Kuitca represented Argentina in addition to participating in curator Robert Storr's central pavilion. In 2009, Kuitca was commissioned to design the curtain for the Dallas Opera, a Foster + Partners building. The same year, a major survey, “Guillermo Kuitca: Everything, Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008” began its tour. Organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Hirshhorn, the exhibition also travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Miami Art Museum. Most recently, The Drawing Center presented “Guillermo Kuitca: Diarios,” which travelled to the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2012-2013). His work is in museum collections worldwide, including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Fundació La Caixa, Barcelona; MALBA – Colección Costantini, Buenos Aires; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Tate, London. Currently, Daros Latinamerica, one of the world’s leading collections of contemporary Latin American art, has 10 paintings by Kuitca on view at the Fondation Beyeler, Switzerland.
This Way
24 April - 21 June 2014
New York, NY: 18 March 2014 -- New York, NY: Sperone Westwater is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Guillermo Kuitca, marking over 20 years of collaboration between the Argentinean artist and the gallery.
Kuitca's new paintings incorporate classic subject matter such as fragmentation and cartography with dynamic rhythms, most dramatically evidenced by Untitled, 2014, a room-like structure measuring approximately 8 1⁄2 x 10 x 7 1⁄2 feet. This major installation developed organically from an experience in the artist's studio. While working on a large scale, Kuitca felt that the geometric shapes necessitated an expansion beyond the borders of the canvas. Kuitca spontaneously started to extend the surface by painting directly onto the studio walls. The quasi-symmetrical structure Untitled is a continuation of this experience. The work’s outside is anonymous – wood panels are painted white, leaving traces of its construction visible. The viewer must enter inside the space and become immersed in Kuitca's mark-making to fully experience the painting. His paint handling echoes Modernist stylistic elements of cut and fractured forms that rhythmically activate the surface. Untitled envelops the viewer, encouraging contemplation.
The large collage Untitled, 2013, extends the technique of his earlier theater and opera house collages, while the work’s imagery derives from Kuitca’s paintings of fragmented road maps. The vivid abstraction is composed of paper fragments, large and small, scattered across the surface creating an arbitrary depiction of unreadable information. Unlike Kuitca's earlier cartographic works, the recent ones have no place names or orientation aids. Precise identification is precluded. The painting Desesperación y Aislamiento (Despair and Isolation), 2012, contains the complete caption information, listing artist, title, year, and technique – an ironic juxtaposition within the otherwise reference-less work. Lines go across the painting’s underlying geometrical structure like roads, creating a topography akin to that of maps.
In July 2014, the major retrospective “Guillermo Kuitca: Philosophy for Princesses” will open at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the oldest art museum in São Paulo. Consisting of nearly 50 works from 1980 to 2013, this exhibition will present Kuitca's career in the widest possible manner. It will include his largest installation to date, Le Sacre (1992), a celebrated work featuring 54 beds and newly acquired by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Guillermo Kuitca (born 1961, Buenos Aires) represented Argentina in the XVIII Bienal de São Paulo in 1989. He received significant international attention following the 1991 “Projects” show at MoMA, New York, and his installation of 20 beds at Documenta IX in 1992. In 2000, Kuitca presented a solo exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, followed in 2003 by a retrospective at the Reina Sofia in Madrid, which subsequently travelled to the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires (MALBA). At the 2007 Venice Biennale, Kuitca represented Argentina in addition to participating in curator Robert Storr's central pavilion. In 2009, Kuitca was commissioned to design the curtain for the Dallas Opera, a Foster + Partners building. The same year, a major survey, “Guillermo Kuitca: Everything, Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008” began its tour. Organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Hirshhorn, the exhibition also travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Miami Art Museum. Most recently, The Drawing Center presented “Guillermo Kuitca: Diarios,” which travelled to the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2012-2013). His work is in museum collections worldwide, including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Fundació La Caixa, Barcelona; MALBA – Colección Costantini, Buenos Aires; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Tate, London. Currently, Daros Latinamerica, one of the world’s leading collections of contemporary Latin American art, has 10 paintings by Kuitca on view at the Fondation Beyeler, Switzerland.