 Gerhard Richter: Waterfall, 1997 The Undiscovered Country Mamma Andersson, John Baldessari, Edgar Bryan, Vija Celmins, Peter Doig, Lucas Duwenhögger, Mari Eastman, Thomas Eggerer, Kirsten Everberg, Philip Guston, Richard Hamilton, Neil Jenney, Jochen Klein, Silke Otto-Knapp, Laura Owens, Thomas Lawson, Kerry James Marshall, Lucy McKenzie, Enoc Perez, Fairfield Porter, Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, Luc Tuymans "The Undiscovered Country" examines the resurgence of representational painting since the 1960s, illustrating its relevance and increasing prominence throughout recent decades. Comprising approximately 65 works by over 20 artists from Europe and the United States, the exhibition provides the rare opportunity to see paintings by younger contemporary artists such as Edgar Bryan, Mari Eastman, Enoc Perez, and Lucy McKenzie in the context of influential works by established 20th-century masters such as Vija Celmins, Philip Guston, Fairfield Porter, and Gerhard Richter. The exhibition was organized by Russell Ferguson, chief curator at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Painting has many times been declared dead or irrelevant since photography usurped its most fundamental function – to depict and represent the world we live in. "The Undiscovered Country" brings together works spanning a forty-year period that illustrate how rich the possibilities of painterly representation still are, and traces the influence earlier artists continue to exert on today's generation. The exhibition highlights many works – including portraits and the human figure, rural landscapes and urban cityscapes, and conceptual approaches to figurative painting – that speak to the continuing power of painting. The exhibition title is a reference to Shakespeare's "Hamlet", who uses the phrase "the undiscovered country" to describe the afterlife "from whose bourn no traveler returns." In this sense, the artists in the exhibition can be seen as navigating the uncharted territory following the so-called death of painting. Their work – exploring the physicality of the medium, the role of painting in conceptual art, the boundaries between photographic imagery and painting, and painting's role in documentation and history – is indicative of a lively resurgence of the medium that continues to hold vast potential yet to be explored. The artists represented in "The Undiscovered Country" have rarely, if ever, been grouped together. Collectively, their works explore different ways in which artists use this tradition-laden medium to represent the world around them, and to create realities that can't be captured by photography. Exhibition highlights include the landscapes and portraits by Fairfield Porter, whose distinct brushstrokes seem to celebrate the physical act of painting. "Amherst Campus #1" (1969) is an example of his deliberate approach that includes unfinished, flat areas of brushwork in a composition that is nonetheless highly representational of its subject. Among the most widely celebrated artists working today, Gerhard Richter is represented by several early and more recent works that combine photographic sensibilities with painterly gestures. In the provocative "Untitled" (1963), his brushstrokes both trace and mask the face of one of two girls in a printed photograph, re-imagining and obscuring it at the same time. The human figure and the painterly gesture are further explored in more recent work by artists such as Richard Prince, whose series of nurse paintings consists of enlarged pulp fiction book covers that are roughly painted over to all but obscure the lone figure of a nurse. Architectural spaces and objects are depicted in the work of several artists, including Enoc Perez's explorations of the grand resort and hotel architecture of the 1950s and 60s. His laborious technique mimics the traditional printing process and coloration of the outdated postcards that are his source material, giving reverence to the hand-made surface even as it refers to mechanical reproduction. "The Undiscovered Country" will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue published by the Hammer Museum. Featuring an essay by curator Russell Ferguson alongside approximately 65 color plates on 120 pages. "The Undiscovered Country" is generously supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Eileen Harris-Norton and the Peter Norton Family Foundation, Beth Swofford, Maria Hummer and Bob Tuttle, David Teiger, Gail and Stanley Hollander, and The Broad Art Foundation. In-kind support provided by W Hotel Los Angeles-Westwood. Curated by Russell Ferguson Exhibition: October 3, 2004 - January 16, 2005 Gallery hours: Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat, 11am - 7pm, Thu 11am - 9pm, Sun 11am - 5pm Closed Mondays, July 4, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day Hammer Museum 10899 Wilshire Blvd USA-Los Angeles, CA 90024 Telephone +1 310.443.7000 Email hammerinfo@arts.ucla.edu www.hammer.ucla.edu |
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