Paris, Texas

Josef Albers
Intaglio Solo II, 1958

Josef Albers (1888-1976) is considered one of the most influential abstract artists of the twentieth century, as well as an important designer and educator. Albers’s artistic career, which bridged European and American Modernism, consisted mainly of a tightly focused investigation into the perceptual properties of color and spatial relationships. Working with simple geometric forms, Albers sought to produce the effects of chromatic interaction, in which the visual perception of a color is affected by those adjacent to it. Albers’s precise application of color also created plays of space and depth, as the planar colored shapes that make up the majority of his works appear to either recede into or protrude out of the picture plane. In November 1933 the Alberses emigrated to the USA where Mr. Albers had been asked to make the visual arts the center of the curriculum at the newly established Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina. They remained at Black Mountain until 1949. Mr. Albers continued his exploration of a range of printmaking techniques and took off as an abstract painter, while continuing as a captivating teacher and writer. In 1950, the Alberses moved to Connecticut. From 1950 to 1958 Josef Albers was chairman of the Department of Design at the Yale University School of Art.

There, and as guest teacher at art schools throughout America and in Europe, he
trained a whole new generation of art teachers. Meanwhile he wrote, painted, and made prints. In 1971 he was the first living artist ever to be honored with a soloretrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is currently preparing Josef Albers in Latin America, which will be on view from November 3, 2017 through February 18, 2018. The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is planning a major survey exhibition of the work of both Josef and Anni Albers for 2019.

These inkless embossings, which became a focus for Albers late in his career, are in direct conversation through their subtle opposing directions, with the geometric forms in one case raised and in the other, in recessed relief, on the Arches paper.

Josef Albers
Intaglio Duo D, 1958

Josef Albers (1888-1976) is considered one of the most influential abstract artists of the twentieth century, as well as an important designer and educator. Albers’s artistic career, which bridged European and American Modernism, consisted mainly of a tightly focused investigation into the perceptual properties of color and spatial relationships. Working with simple geometric forms, Albers sought to produce the effects of chromatic interaction, in which the visual perception of a color is affected by those adjacent to it. Albers’s precise application of color also created plays of space and depth, as the planar colored shapes that make up the majority of his works appear to either recede into or protrude out of the picture plane. In November 1933 the Alberses emigrated to the USA where Mr. Albers had been asked to make the visual arts the center of the curriculum at the newly established Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina. They remained at Black Mountain until 1949. Mr. Albers continued his exploration of a range of printmaking techniques and took off as an abstract painter, while continuing as a captivating teacher and writer. In 1950, the Alberses moved to Connecticut. From 1950 to 1958 Josef Albers was chairman of the Department of Design at the Yale University School of Art.

There, and as guest teacher at art schools throughout America and in Europe, he
trained a whole new generation of art teachers. Meanwhile he wrote, painted, and made prints. In 1971 he was the first living artist ever to be honored with a soloretrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is currently preparing Josef Albers in Latin America, which will be on view from November 3, 2017 through February 18, 2018. The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is planning a major survey exhibition of the work of both Josef and Anni Albers for 2019.

These inkless embossings, which became a focus for Albers late in his career, are in direct conversation through their subtle opposing directions, with the geometric forms in one case raised and in the other, in recessed relief, on the Arches paper.

Katherine Bradford
Deep Blue Swimmers, 2017

Looking at Katherine Bradford’s paintings, it can be hard not to get sucked in. Her immersive works blur the line between earth and cosmos, between individual experience and universal truth. The artist often depicts people engaged in rather ordinary pursuits such as bathing, surfing, or biking, but their submersion in a murky, celestial backdrop evokes a feeling of universality. Bradford enjoys “making paintings that are about something bigger than everyday life,” elevating common experiences to what she calls an “epic scale.” The luminosity that the artist is able to achieve in her works can take months, and sometimes years to achieve, as she meticulously applies and replies acrylic paint to create a sense of spatial depth. Her otherworldly, rapturous paintings touch on some of the most profound, relevant themes addressed by art today: wonder, vulnerability, joy, and fear.

Louise Dahl-Wolfe
Night Bathing, 1939

Best known as a fashion photographer, Louise Dahl-Wolfe revolutionized the world of commercial photography with her use of natural light and integration of modernist aesthetics. During her 22-year career as a photographer for Harper’s Bazaar, she published 86 covers, as well as hundreds of other images in both black and white and in color. Her works are recognizable for their creative use of focus, as well as their strong compositions. She was also celebrated for her works, such as Night Bathing, that placed models alongside artworks. In this photograph, Dahl-Wolfe expertly juxtaposes her model with a Greco-Roman sculpture, emphasizing the similarities between their forms and therefore associating the real woman with a timeless elegance and sophistication.

Nicole Eisenman
Fourpack, 2010

Nicole Eisenman’s work explores the profundities of the human condition — no small task, but manageable enough for a MacArthur “Genius” who is also one of the most well-known and well-respected artists working today. Her works are known for their emotional resonance and intense colors, her cartoonish characters evoking a sense of pathos and an ironic humor. “The work,” Eisenman explained, “is nothing if not feeling-based.” The artist often uses friends as models, creating distorted worlds based on familiar realities. Four Pack, along with numerous other works by Eisenman, was printed by Jungle Press Editions, a fine art publisher founded by master printer and Yale MFA graduate Andrew Mockler. The press works directly with artists to create unique, experimental works, and projects from the press have received numerous awards. Eisenman’s work has also been shown across the United States and Europe, and is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Denver Art Museum, and the Walker Art Museum, among others.

Jim Goldberg
Street Views #1 & #2, 2014-15

Jim Goldberg (born 1953, New Haven) is an American artist and photographer whose work reflects long-term, in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations. In a career spanning 40 years, Goldberg has received three National Endowment of the Arts Fellowships in Photography, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. His works have been exhibited, published, and collected internationally at institutions including the Corcoran Gallery, MoMa, and SF Moma. He is Professor Emeritus at the California College of the Arts, and has been a member of the Magnum Photos agency since 2002. He studied with Larry Sultan and currently lives and works in the Bay Area.

The works assembled are from a collaboration with photographer Donovan Wylie that grew out of a 2013 joint residency at the Yale University Art Gallery. These images have been discussed in the New York Times and will be part of the forthcoming book “Candy/A Good and Spacious Land” for which Goldberg used Super 8 film stills, images of New Haven’s urban landscape, annotated Polaroid portraits, and collaged archival materials to create a photo-novel about the trajectory of 20th-century American cities. A Good and Spacious Land chronicles the changes to New Haven’s topography during the construction of a massive highway interchange, offering connections between a contemporary American interpretation of the “Promised Land” and the underlying biblical narrative.

Peter Halley
Prisons, 2014

Peter Halley’s work explores the physicality of social space, investigating how individual identity functions within an increasingly isolating world. Halley has developed a unique vocabulary of icons — which he calls “prisons” and “cells” — that communicate contemporary experiences of alienation and urbanization, and which he has used in almost all of his works over the past 25 years. His system of symbols resembles a language, a “closed set” that Halley can “infinitely reassociate” to create new meanings. His works are also deeply engaged with philosophy. They draw upon the writings of Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault, both of whom address the impact of regimented physical and social space on human interactions. His works have been exhibited around the world, and can be found in the collections of such prestigious institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Lotte Jacobi
Lotte Lenya, Berlin, 1930

Lotte Jacobi’s photographs express the zeitgeist of Weimar Germany, capturing the era’s rich cultural life through intimate portraits of prominent figures. Jacobi’s 1930 portrait of Lotte Lenya shows the famed Austrian actress in her role as Jenny, the protagonist of Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera. Wearing heavy makeup for the performance, Lenya stares confidently at the camera. She insouciantly rests her chin on her arm, holding a cigarette in her hand. Jacobi was able to draw out Lenya’s true personality from beneath the makeup and costume; although the actress is dressed as Jenny for the Opera, her gaze betrays a complex interiority.

Lotte Jacobi
The Turn, Claire Bauroff Dancer, Berlin, ca. 1928

Lotte Jacobi’s portrait of Claire Bauroff is as dynamic as the dancer she depicts. The photographer has captured Bauroff in the middle of an expressive gesture, her unstable positioning adding to the energy of the image. Further augmenting this sense of movement, Jacobi included Bauroff’s shadow in the photograph, its form mimicking her body and appearing almost as a second dancer behind her. A fourth generation photographer, Jacobi was, and continues to be, widely known for her portraits of prominent cultural figures. Her subjects included Alfred Stieglitz, Eleanor Roosevelt, and J.D. Salinger, among others, and her portraits are unique in their level of intimacy and personal expression.

Georgia O’Keeffe
Georgia O’Keeffe – drawings, 1968

When Artist Georgia O’Keeffe created the original drawings published in this limited edition print portfolio, she was still an unknown artist. The drawings, begun in 1915, are considered by art historians to be among the earliest and most individual manifestations of abstraction in American modern art.

In 1968, O’Keeffe personally selected ten of her drawings — those which represent the range and variety of her work — for this project. Chip Benson, MacArthur Prize winning artist and former Dean of Yale School of Art worked with Doris Bry, leading authority on O’Keeffe’s art, to create the prints. The first of many collaborative projects the two undertook, the lithographs were then published by Atlantis Editions, the imprint founded by Bry. The ten drawings were printed in 300-line screen offset lithography; nine of the plates were made in black-and-white, and “Blue Lines” was printed in striking blue. 230 editions were numbered and signed by O’Keeffe herself. In the original folding box is also included a booklet with an Introduction by art historian Lloyd Goodrich. The works exemplify O’Keeffe’s use of undulating, spiraling motifs, their swirling and delicate forms drawing the eye in and creating dynamic compositions.

This lot, in addition to the unparalleled and rare collection of O’Keeffe’s work, also includes a private tour of the Brooklyn Museum exhibition Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern. Led by Susan Fisher, Director of Collections at the Brooklyn Museum, the tour will give the recipient a unique perspective on O’Keeffe’s art and her important place in the development of American modern art.

Hunt Slonem
Untitled (Bunny), 2016

Hunt Slonem is known for his expressive artworks that revel in the possibilities and materiality of paint itself. This fascination with his medium is evident in Slonem’s evocative color choices and use of spontaneous, often unconventional brushstrokes. Slonem’s output, from paintings of individual animals such as Untitled (Bunny), to larger composite works, exhibit a wit and restless dynamism that, as poet and critic John Asbury wrote, “Summon dazzling explosions of the variable life around us…into being.”

Slonem first gained popular recognition in the 1970s for his Neo-Expressionist paintings of butterflies and exotic birds, and he has since expanded his repertoire to include, among other subjects, rabbits. The artist began his Bunny series in the 1980s, after discovering that he was born in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit. A defining theme of his oeuvre, the bunny, in its infinite variations, has allowed Slonem to explore his interest in repetition. Although he acknowledges the influence of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans and other serial works on his use of repeated forms, Slonem is not motivated by Warhol’s love for mechanization and uniformity. Instead, Slonem identifies repetition with spiritual meditation, and sees it as “a form of worship.” He creates Bunny paintings each morning as part of his routine, bringing to life rabbits of an assortment of colors, moods, and poses. As author John Berendt described, “Upon rising – even before he’s had his first cup of coffee – Hunt Slonem performs his daily warm-ups. He approaches his worktable where a stack of small rectangular panels awaits…In the course of the next half hour he will have populated all the panels with rabbits. These paintings are what he calls his warm-ups.” The Bunny works are therefore expressions of pure, unhindered creativity, and serve as inspiration for other paintings and projects.

Although born in Maine, Slonem had an international upbringing on military bases across the globe. He graduated from Tulane University and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and eventually moved to New York where he became the friend and respected colleague of figures such as Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, and Liza Minelli. Slonem’s work has been featured in over 300 one-man shows, as well as 250 group shows, and his pieces can be found in the permanent collections of 250 galleries and museums worldwide.

Alfred Stieglitz
Snapshot From My Window, New York, 1902

Alfred Stieglitz was an extremely influential figure in the history of photography. He was dedicated to elevating the medium to the status of fine art, and viewed photography as an aesthetic, creative endeavor requiring sophisticated skill. To this end, Stieglitz founded the Photo-Secession exhibition society in 1902, which championed the photographic medium and served as a nexus for many important artistic figures of the early twentieth century. Snapshot from My Window, New York was published in Camera Work, the publication associated with the Photo-Secession, and shows a bird’s eye view of a snowy city street. The image illustrates how Stieglitz often employed eye-catching compositions, as well natural elements such as snow or rain, to visually associate his work with painting.

Alfred Stieglitz
Winter, Fifth Avenue, 1892

Alfred Stieglitz’s contributions to the history of photography, both as an artist and an advocate, cannot be overstated. Stieglitz viewed photography as a fine art, comparable to painting, and not simply a mechanistic tool for documentary. In 1902, he founded the Photo-Secession, an exhibition society dedicated to elevating the photographic medium. Winter, Fifth Avenue shows how Stieglitz used specific techniques to visually associate his photographs with paintings, therefore validating their status as art. The image shows New York’s Fifth Avenue on a snowy day; the tracks in the road show that many people and carriages have passed through recently, and they lead the viewer’s eye to the center of the image. To capture this moment, Stieglitz waited on Fifth Avenue for three hours, pacing the street and waiting for the perfect composition to come into view. The snowy atmosphere lends the photograph and impressionistic quality and creates a painterly effect.

William Villalongo
Nymph #20, 2012

William Villalongo is an archaeologist of contemporary culture. Combining mass imagery, mythology, art history, and personal experience, Villalongo’s work investigates history in an effort to better understand the present and future. Intertwining informal and established narratives, the artist is interested in history as a palimpsest, with current events mirroring and underlying past phenomena. Pieces such as Nymph #20 evidence this intermingling of past and present; the figure of a nude woman in a landscape makes explicit reference to art historical tropes, but her pose, facial expression, and avant-garde mask signal that the work is profoundly contemporary. The shadowy composition, surrounded by a dark vignette of foliage, produces the feeling of peering into an otherworldly space.

Born in Florida, raised in New Jersey, and now living in Brooklyn, New York, Villalongo has been the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Awary and Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters’ and Sculptors’ Grant. His work is in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Princeton University Art Museum.

Tom Burr Experience

Meet Tom Burr for a private tour of the Pirelli space and the site-specific works he has created there, and take home a Polaroid photograph, Untitled (from 42nd Street Structures), 1995, that he has specially chosen for Artspace.

Burr was born and raised in New Haven, and educated at Educational Center for the Arts before attending the School of Visual Arts and the Whitney Independent Study Program. He is a celebrated conceptual sculptor especially concerned with modernist architectural space and with the more confined public spaces adopted by underground subcultures, whether sites for cruising, or other socially and often legally restricted behav­ior (e.g., bathrooms, movie theaters, and hedgerows). His work is evocative of the sculptures of Tony Smith and Gordon Matta-Clark, and for inspiration he draws from a wide range of sources from Truman Capote to Jim Morrison. His current New Haven project, Body/Building, will activate the vacant, iconic, brutalist Marcel Breuer building on I95, now owned by IKEA. It is scheduled to open in May 2017, as part of the Bortolami Gallery’s national Artist/City initiative. His work has been exhibited at the Hammer Museum at UCLA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco, and New York’s SculptureCenter and Swiss Institute. Burr currently lives and works in Norfolk, Connecticut and in New York City. His work is in the collections of Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles, the New York Public Library, and the Baltimore Museum.

Hear Burr discuss the evolution of his project at the Pirelli Building.

Now, hear him discuss his work, Zog (a series of setbacks) at the Walker Museum, Minneapolis, where a suite of these Polariod images is hanging now as part of the exhibition Question the Wall Itself. Made in 1995, they are all photographs of Times Square in New York right at the moment that it was being Disney-fied.

Marfa Experience

Explore the world-class nexus of art, culture, and the high desert known as Marfa with 2 nights at El Cosmico, in a glamorous retrofitted RV on the desert campground featured in the 100 Getaways Around the World (Taschen), and a schedule curated by artist friends of Artspace who call Marfa home. Enjoy insider-led visits to the Chinati Foundation, the Judd Foundation, and Ballroom Marfa. Includes a copy of Wim Wenders’ 2015 artbook, “Written in the West, Revisited”.

Accomodations for 2. Doesn’t include transportation, but Artspace’s staff will ply you with travel advice and suggestions we’ve received from Marfa regulars. Several months advance notice is required to ensure your choice of dates.

Paris Getaway for two

Fly to Europe from Hartford on the new flights on Aer Lingus and enjoy an insider-led tour of Paris’ contemporary art highlights. Depending on the season, your visits may include the artists studios at the Fondations Des Etats Unies, the Pompidou Center, and Paris’ oldest city-run live-work studio complex, built in the 1920s. Includes the limited-edition, vintage silkscreen poster of Josef Alber’s 1973 Paris exhibition at Galerie Melki.

Subject to certain airline restrictions. Doesn’t include accomodations, but Artspace’s staff will ply you with travel tips and suggestions. Your tickets are valid up to one year with all travel completed by April 30, 2018.

Blackout dates include the months June, July and August 2017 and the period from Dec 15, 2017 – Jan 10, 2018.