Forthcoming Exhibitions and Publications in Europe & Asia

Rashid Johnson ​ ​
​Hauser & Wirth Paris ​ ​
​Opens 14 October

Recognized as one of the leading voices of his generation, Rashid Johnson’s new works in this exhibition, which span painting, sculpture and film, demonstrate the artist’s longstanding interest in the concepts of interiority and self-reflection. The exhibition marks the gallery debut of two new bodies of painting, the closely-related Soul Paintings and God Paintings, both series that Johnson has developed over the past year. Alongside and evolving out of the works on canvas are two new series of bronze sculptures, their roughly-modeled surfaces bearing witness to the artist’s hand in a way that has dominated his sculptural practice in recent years. Also on display is the artist’s latest film, Sanguine, exploring relationships of attention and care among three generations of the artist’s family: his father, himself and his son. ​

Continuing to expand his distinctive visual lexicon, this exhibition exemplifies the artist’s interest in animism, the belief in which all things, including inanimate objects, have souls. Through the concept of animism, the artist connects to a reality beyond the physical, building an expansive vision of the universe in which all objects, including the paintings and sculptures on view, are imbued with spiritual life.

Throughout the exhibition, Johnson returns to an iconic form within his visual language, the evocative almond-shaped vesica piscis, a leitmotif that has been in use in visual culture around the world since humanity’s earliest days. Employed vertically in the deeply personal God Paintings, this form takes on a ritual, meditative quality, its constant repetition forming a visual mantra that recalls vernacular forms familiar from any number of diverse material cultures. Employed horizontally in the Soul Paintings, the abstract form takes on a representational, biological quality, suggesting mask-like cranial forms, eyes and skeletal pectorals. Johnson harnesses these evocative motifs to capture and examine his spiritual journey, and the exhibition invites viewers to embark on their own.

Mark Bradford. Exotica
​26 September 2024 - 1 March 2025
​Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong

Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong presents ‘Exotica,’ a major solo exhibition by Mark Bradford that navigates the concept of ‘otherness’ through a formally innovative body of work.

Consisting of around 20 new paintings, the exhibition extends Bradford’s study of figuration through the use of a signature staining technique, which uses caulk to create ghost-like imprints on the canvas. These forms inject the artist’s layered compositions with a trace of fantasy, specters and strangeness.

The exhibition is anchored by a group of paintings centered on the agave plant, a monocarpic variety that blooms only once at the end of its lifecycle. Drawing inspiration from a 1970s’ encyclopedic text that catalogued ‘exotic’ plants from a Western perspective, this new body of work considers how we imagine, internalize and project a sense of ‘otherness’ onto which we may be able to name, but have not understood.

The exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong coincides with Bradford’s first solo museum presentation in Germany at the Hamburger Bahnhof–Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin (6 September 2024 – 10 March 2025).

In partnership with The Bridge Plus, a local social enterprise in Hong Kong, Hauser & Wirth and Mark Bradford have devised a learning program to accompany the exhibition that will engage with a group of young people, aged 16 – 18, from the Sham Shui Po neighborhood. Participants will explore Bradford’s ‘Merchant Poster’ body of work in a series of workshops designed to introduce young creators to the processes of screen printing and photo emulsion, and to connect with the LA neighborhoods where Bradford sources the materials that have inspired these artworks. Mark Bradford will collaborate with the student participants to realize a mural in the Bridge+ space depicting a map of Hong Kong. The students will install the ‘Merchant Posters’ they create during the workshop in the Bridge+ space, adjacent to the mural.

Jack Whitten
​Hauser & Wirth London
​7 October – 21 December 2024 ​ ​ 

Over the course of a six-decade career, Jack Whitten’s work has bridged rhythms of gestural abstraction and process art, arriving at a nuanced language of painting that hovers between mechanical automation and intensely personal expression. Focusing on Whitten’s paintings and works on paper from the 1970s, this exhibition showcases a juncture in the artist’s painting career, which saw him reject the gestural brushstrokes of abstract expressionism in favour of experimental processes and materials. This includes rare works from Whitten’s landmark Greek Alphabet series (1975-78), which was the focus of a dedicated exhibition at Dia Beacon, New York, from 2022 to 2023, consisting of variations of abstract, monochrome compositions and investigations into mark-making with handmade tools and techniques, including the comb, imprinting and frottage.

During the 1970s, Whitten’s experiments with the materiality of paint reached a climax; removing a thick slab of acrylic paint from its support, the artist realized that the medium could be coaxed into the form of an independent object. He used this mode of experimentation to challenge pre-existing notions of dimensionality in painting, repeatedly layering slices of acrylic ribbon on uneven fields of wet paint to mimic the application of mosaic tessarae onto wet masonry. He also relied heavily on the capacities of Xerox’s electrostatic printing technology, which allowed him to push traditional visual vocabulary and manipulate the idea of plane and space. Moreover, he removed the use of pens and brushes and began using unconventional tools for drawings and paintings such as a carpenter’s saw blade and an afro-comb. Whitten named these new tools ‘processors’ or ‘developers,’ reiterating the connections to photo-processing; these enabled him to create abstract constructions formed by one sweeping motion.

George Rouy. The Bleed ​ ​
​Hauser & Wirth London
​7 October – 21 December 2024 ​ ​ 

Emerging as a leading figure within the next generation of painters, George Rouy’s debut solo exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in London will feature a body of new work continuing his inquiry into groups of figures, collective mass, multiplicities and movement, and human modes of existence. Rouy’s dynamic and signature use of the human figure, vexed with desire, alienation and crisis, speaks to the emotional extremities of our time, resulting in explorations of identity in a globalized, technologically driven 21st Century.

Amongst the themes Rouy explores in these new works is the idea of ‘carrying;’ how we are carried into life and eventually carried out of life. The works are considering collective care, how we care for each other from birth until death; how our lives are a sequence of experiences of balance and unease; feelings of being carried, or feeling the opposite—being dropped. What happens to the mass of individuals placed into surrounding space.

‘The bleed’ is a term Rouy uses in relation to the surrounds of the figures; the relationship between figure and void and how those two realms interact in terms of the surface of the paintings: a physical seeping, blending and merging. ‘The surrounds’ refers to the place where the flesh and inner parts of the body meet its surrounding conditions—temperature, heat, etc.

Articulating a vocabulary of figurative painting which is as distinctive as it is visceral, Rouy’s paintings are defined by contradictions—stasis and flow, precision and indeterminacy—in doing so he undermines the body as a fixed unit, proposing instead a body that constantly imagines and defines itself through its relationship with itself, with others, and with the world at large.

Charles Gaines ​
​Hauser & Wirth at Frieze London ​
​9 – 13 October 2024

Charles Gaines’ solo booth at Frieze London will debut the newest works from his acclaimed Shadows series, which began in 1978. This marks the first time he revisits this subject since the early 1980s. ‘Shadows’ continues Gaines’ long interest in engaging with formulas and systems that interrogate relationships between the objective and subjective realms.

The new works are comprised of sub-series that depict different species of plants. Each sub-series is made up of four ‘sets’, each consisting of a photograph, ink drawing and a watercolor. Over each sub-series, Gaines rotates and sequentially plots the forms of the plant and its shadow on a numbered grid. To complete the series, Gaines turns each plant 90 degrees and documents it through the same process, so that each plant is shown rotated 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees. As each set progresses, the ink drawings and watercolors depict a combination of all the prior rotations of the plant and its shadow, resulting in a complex, layered map of the complete subject collapsed into a final image.

Despite the methodical and ordered nature of the numbers, the Shadows series serves as an exploration of the nature of perception. Rooted in a meticulously devised system rather than the artist’s imagination or intuition, Gaines’ process highlights variations in forms, suggesting the arbitrary nature of other constructed systems in our society such as politics, gender, race and class. Through this revisitation, Gaines asks the viewer to visually reformulate the deconstructed form of the plant. The Shadows series—both then and now—demands the viewer's participation in the work, as we look closely and participate in the reconstruction of an ordinary object.

Günther Förg. Arbeiten auf Papier / Works on Paper / Oeuvres sur Papier: 1975 – 2009
​Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse
​Opens 27 September 2024

A survey exhibition of post-war German artist Günther Förg’s works on paper, spanning over 30 years, opens in Zurich this September. Executed in a variety of materials from charcoal and oil to ink, Förg’s works on paper position him as a daring conceptualist who both incorporated and critiqued tropes of the sprawling movement known as modernism, while celebrating his distinctively sensuous approach to gestural abstraction. Förg’s prolific body of work ranges from painting and drawing to sculpture and photography, sidestepping easy categorization by candidly appropriating and re-imagining canonical art historical references.

Körperlich
​Hauser & Wirth Basel
​30 August – 2 November 2024

Opening during Kunsttage Basel, Hauser & Wirth opens its second exhibition in its new Basel location with a group show of works by women artists, including Louise Bourgeois, Maria Lassnig, Meret Oppenheim, Alina Szapocznikow, Irène Zurkinden, Lee Lozano, Hannah Villiger and Carol Rama. Titled ‘Körperlich’, meaning ‘bodily’ in English, the artists in this exhibition are each concerned with the body, exploring its role in the construction and expression of identity. The works range from forms of portraiture, through images of the nude body, and representations of corporeal parts, to semi-abstract images that suggest bodily forms.

Phyllida Barlow. unscripted
​Curated by Frances Morris
​Hauser & Wirth Somerset
​Until 5 January 2025

The work of Phyllida Barlow (1944 – 2023) takes over Hauser & Wirth Somerset in a celebration of the British artist’s transformative approach to sculpture, marking the 10th anniversary of the arts center that was inaugurated by Barlow’s solo exhibition ‘GIG’ in 2014. The landmark exhibition is curated by Frances Morris and draws on her close working relationship with the artist during her lifetime. The presentation explores the evolution of Barlow’s formal and expressive vocabulary, bringing together objects and installations, studio maquettes and drawings from across her extensive career, some of which are on public view for the first time.

‘Over the last 10 years, Phyllida Barlow kept her fans and followers on the edge of their seats as she brought new and ever more audacious projects to life in venues across the world. Unfolding as a running commentary on the tragedies and absurdities of our time, each work formed part of an ongoing and intensely experimental investigation into the techniques and materials of art making, seeking visual equivalents to her own personal experience of living and looking.’—Frances Morris

Over a career that spanned six decades, Barlow took inspiration from her surroundings to create imposing installations that can be at once menacing and playful. Barlow’s restless invented forms stretch the limits of mass, volume and height as they block, straddle and balance precariously. The audience is challenged into a new relationship with the sculptural object, the gallery environment and the world beyond.

Coinciding with the exhibition, our Learning program includes activities such as workshops and tours, as well as our annual Bristol Old Vic Youth Theatre Summer School, all taking inspiration from Barlow’s work. Our Education Lab, ‘Art School,’ provides a dynamic platform for a wide range of learning across our communities. Participants have a space to learn new skills, share knowledge and display new ideas in relation to the themes and processes presented within the exhibition.

Hauser & Wirth Publishers: New Releases
​Autumn 2024

Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ autumn program features seven new titles, including ‘Glenn Ligon: Distinguishing Piss from Rain,’ a long-awaited collection of three decades of writings by and interviews with the acclaimed American artist, and ‘Gustav Metzger: Interviews with Hans Ulrich Obrist,’ telling the story of Metzger’s life and work in the artist’s own words.

Other highlights include a comprehensive guide to Phyllida Barlow’s sculptural language over her storied six-decade career; a memoir by Susana Chillida, drawing an intimate portrait of her parents, Eduardo Chillida and Pilar Belzunce; a volume dedicated to Mike Kelley’s exhibition ‘Nonmemory,’ on view in Los Angeles earlier this year; the catalog of Hauser & Wirth Basel’s inaugural exhibition, ‘Vilhelm Hammershøi: Silence’; and the second installment of Angela Thomas’s biography of Max Bill.

Hauser & Wirth Publishers will participate in BOOKED: Hong Kong Art Book Fair from 30 August – 1 September 2024, presenting a selection of new releases and classic titles.

Press Contacts:

Alice Haguenauer
​Hauser & Wirth London/Paris
​alicehaguenauer@hauserwirth.com

Tara Liang
​Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong
​tara@hauserwirth.com

Maddy Martin ​
​Hauser & Wirth Zurich
​maddymartin@hauserwirth.com

Laura Cook ​
​Hauser & Wirth Somerset ​
​lauracook@hauserwirth.com

Francesca Cosslett
​Hauser & Wirth Publishers
​francescacosslett@hauserwirth.com

^{Copyright and Courtesy Credits}

^{Portrait of Rashid Johnson
​© Rashid Johnson
​Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
​Photo: Joshua Woods}

^{Portrait of Mark Bradford
​© Mark Bradford
​Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
​Photo: Sean Shim-Boyle}

^{Portrait of Jack Whitten, ca. 19745 – 1975
​© Jack Whitten Estate
​Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth}

^{Jack Whitten
​Greek Alphabet Series
​1976
​Charcoal and pencil with drilled holes on Arches
​63.7 x 56.6 cm / 25 1/8 x 22 1/4 in
​© Jack Whitten Estate
​Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth
​Photo: John Berens}

^{Jack Whitten
​Xzee III
​1977
​Acrylic on canvas
​130.2 x 103.5 cm / 51 1/4 x 40 3/4 in
​© Jack Whitten Estate
​Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth
​Photo: Thomas Barratt}

^{Charles Gaines
​Shadows XII: Jade, Set 4
​2024
​Photograph, watercolor, ink on paper, 3 sheets
​Overall: 78.5 x 242.7 x 5.1 cm / 30 7/8 x 95 1/2 x 2 in
​© Charles Gaines
​Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
​Keith Lubow}

^{George Rouy, 2024 ​
​© George Rouy
​Courtesy the artist, Hannah Barry Gallery and Hauser & Wirth
​Photo: Kemka Ajoku}

^{Günther Förg ​
​Untitled
​2007
​Mixed media on Laurier paper
​80 x 137 cm / 31 1/2 x 53 7/8 in
​Estate Günther Förg, Suisse / 2024, ProLitteris, Zurich
​Photo: Bernhard Strauss}

^{Lee Lozano ​
​No title
​1962-1963
​Oil on canvas
​91.3 x 96.7 cm / 36 x 38 1/8 in
​© The Estate of Lee Lozano
​Courtesy Hauser & Wirth
​Photo: Jon Etter}

^{Installation view, ‘Phyllida Barlow. unscripted’, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2024 © Phyllida Barlow Estate. Courtesy Phyllida Barlow Estate and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Ken Adlard}

^{Phyllida Barlow
​PRANK: antic; 2022/23
​2022-2023
​Steel, fibreglass, lacquer
​388.6 x 274.3 x 271.8 cm / 153 x 108 x 107 in
​Installation view, ‘Phyllida Barlow. unscripted’, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2024. © Phyllida Barlow Estate. Courtesy Phyllida Barlow Estate and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Ken Adlard}

^{Phyllida Barlow, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles CA, 2022
​Courtesy the Phyllida Barlow Estate and Hauser & Wirth
​Photo: Emma Louise Swanson}

^{Hauser & Wirth Publishers, Rämistrasse 5
​Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Publishers
​Photo: Sim Canetty-Clark}

^{Interior view featuring ‘Crack Between the Floorboards’ (2014) by Mark Bradford at Hauser & Wirth New York, 18th Street
​© Mark Bradford
​Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth}

^{Cover of ‘Glenn Ligon: Distinguishing Piss from Rain; Writings and Interviews’
​Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Publishers
​Photo: Billy Tuttle}

^{Cover of ‘Gustav Metzger’ ​
​Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Publishers}

^{Cover of ‘They Lived for Art: My Parents, Eduardo Chillida and Pilar Belzunce’
​Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Publishers}