Forthcoming Exhibitions in Switzerland
Zurich Art Weekend and Art Basel 2022
Press Release
Alberto Giacometti, Buste d’homme (Bust of Man), 1951, oil on canvas, 46.2 x 38 cm / 18 1/4 x 15 in. Courtesy of Private Collection. © Succession Alberto Giacometti / 2022, ProLitteris, Zurich
Pablo Picasso, Tête de femme (Head of a Woman), 30 June 1971, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm / 31 7/8 x 25 5/8 in. Courtesy of Private Collection. © Succession Picasso / 2022, ProLitteris, Zurich. Photo: Jon EtterFacing Infinity: Alberto Giacometti & Pablo Picasso
Curated by Dr. Dieter Buchhart
Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Bahnhofstrasse 1
9 June – 27 August 2022
This June, coinciding with Zurich Art Weekend and Art Basel, Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Bahnhofstrasse 1 presents ‘Facing Infinity. Alberto Giacometti & Pablo Picasso’, an exhibition of critical late works by two of the most important artists of the 20th Century. Bringing together a selection of masterpieces from international collections, this exhibition displays new insights into Picasso and Giacometti’s questioning of existence, as well as their endless search for the relationship between figure and space. This is the second collaboration between Hauser & Wirth and internationally renowned curator and expert of modern and contemporary art Dr. Dieter Buchhart, who curated the exhibition ‘Schwitters Miró Arp’ at Hauser & Wirth in 2016. He states: ‘‘Facing Infinity. Alberto Giacometti & Pablo Picasso’ brings a focused insight into their dazzling last years, revealing fascinating connections and contrasts.’
Frank Bowling. Penumbral Light
Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse
10 June – 20 August 2022
Over the course of six decades, Sir Frank Bowling has relentlessly pursued a practice which boldly expands the properties of paint. For the artist’s first solo presentation in Switzerland, ‘Frank Bowling. Penumbral Light’, displays recent abstract paintings made mostly during the London lockdown in 2020. Following a period of ill health for the artist in 2019, the works trace the renewed energy and dynamism that Bowling channelled in the studio during his recovery. His restless reinvention of the painted plane endures in this current body of work, which continues to break new ground through the artist’s use of multi-layered washes, thick impasto textures, acrylic gels, stitched canvas and metallic and pearlescent pigments.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an eponymous catalogue by Hauser & Wirth Publishers, featuring texts by Arnolfini Bristol curator Gemma Brace and Ben Bowling, the artist’s son. In October 2022, ‘Frank Bowling: The New York Years 1967-75’ will open at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the first major survey of the artist’s work by an American institution in more than four decades, which will travel to SFMOMA in San Francisco in 2023. In 2021, Bowling was awarded the Wolfgang Hahn Prize, and a presentation of the newly acquired painting ‘Flogging the Dead Donkey’ (2020) will go on view at Museum Ludwig, Cologne in November 2022.
Jack Whitten
Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse
10 June – 20 August 2022
Celebrated for his innovative transfiguration of paint, Jack Whitten (1939 – 2018) holds a unique place in the narrative of post-war American abstract art. This June, Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse presents Whitten’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland, coinciding with Zurich Art Weekend and Art Basel. ‘Jack Whitten’ features paintings and works on paper created during the late 1960s, many of which have never been exhibited before. During this decade, Whitten bridged themes of gestural abstraction and process art to work toward a nuanced language of painting that employs deeply personal expression. A time of self-reflection and search for identity, Whitten asked himself in his studio logs from this period, ‘Who are you Jack Whitten? What kind of person do you want to be? What sort of world do you want?’. Following on from the presentation in Zurich, an exhibition dedicated to Whitten’s works from the 1970s will open at Dia Beacon in New York this November.
Jack Whitten, born in 1939 in Bessemer, Alabama, came to New York in 1960 to study at the Cooper Union. At the time, abstract expressionism dominated the art world; the work of Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline was at the forefront of Whitten’s mind. Whitten lived amongst many creatives during this period and was able to meet New York artists, such as Philip Guston, Barnett Newman, Jacob Lawrence and Norman Lewis – many of whom would leave a long-lasting impression on the young artist. After graduating in 1964, he began creating colourful, gestural paintings in response to the abstract expressionist movement. The works on view present his inventive juxtaposition of abstraction with surreal figurative imagery.
Hauser & Wirth at Art Basel
Booth C10, 14 – 19 June 2022
hauserwirth.com from 9 June 2022
In celebration of Hauser & Wirth’s 30th anniversary, the gallery’s booth will feature one of the most iconic art works of the 20th-century, Louise Bourgeois’ ‘Spider’ (1996). Measuring 11ft in height, the sculpture is a unique steel version fabricated by Bourgeois in her Brooklyn studio and has been in the same private collection since the 1990s. The booth has been radically redesigned to house ‘Spider’, which will be the centrepiece of the presentation. The sculpture will be shown alongside an outstanding selection of modern and contemporary masterpieces by artists including Philip Guston, Mark Bradford, Avery Singer, Christina Quarles, Eduardo Chillida, George Condo, Frank Bowling, Rashid Johnson, Gerhard Richter, Glenn Ligon, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Maria Lassnig. At Art Basel Unlimited, British artist Thomas J Price will unveil a new 12ft sculpture titled ‘Moments Contained’, alongside Lorna Simpson’s installation ‘Wigs II’ (1994) and Anna Maria Maiolino’s two channel video installation ‘Twice (I X & II Y)’ (1947/2022).
Alongside Bourgeois’ ‘Spider’, modern highlights from this year’s booth include Philip Guston’s late masterpiece ‘Smoking II’ (1973) – an autobiographical work of Guston smoking in bed, showcasing his unprecedented figural language which emerged in the late 1960s. Additional important works include ‘Begirari I’ (1956) by Spanish artist Eduardo Chillida, a rare and unique work which initiated a widely lauded series of five sculptures, and ‘Composition á motifs d’oiseaux’, a gouache and ink on paper from 1927 by Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp.
Later works include a prime example of Frank Bowling’s iconic Map paintings from the late 1960s and 70s, titled ‘Karter’s Choice’ (1972), as well as Gerhard Richter’s ‘I.G.’ (1993) – an extraordinary painting of his second wife, the renowned artist Isa Genzken, who is part of the gallery’s roster.
Exceptional new works by contemporary artists include Mark Bradford, Avery Singer, Glenn Ligon, George Condo, Nicolas Party, Lorna Simpson, Angel Otero, Rashid Johnson and Christina Quarles. Morphing between abstraction and figuration, Quarles’ painting ‘Fell Down Beneath They Own Wait (Tha Fences We Mended)’ (2022) depicts figures giving way to multiple limbs and faces in the artist’s hallmark painterly style, combining instinctive brushstrokes with carefully painted patterns.
Camille Henrot
Art in the Park at the Baur au Lac, Zurich
13 June – 17 July 2022
For additional information, please contact:
Anna-Maria Pfab, Hauser & Wirth Zurich/Gstaad annamariapfab@hauserwirth.com
Maddy Martin, Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz/Zurich maddymartin@hauserwirth.com
HauserWirth_ZAW_ArtBasel_22.pdf
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