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SP-Arte

April 11 – 15, 2018

Alexander Gray Associates

Alexander Gray Associates
SP-Arte 2018
Installation view

Alexander Gray AssociatesSP-Arte 2018Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates
SP-Arte 2018
Installation view

Alexander Gray AssociatesSP-Arte 2018Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates
SP-Arte 2018
Installation view

Alexander Gray AssociatesSP-Arte 2018Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates
SP-Arte 2018
Installation view

Alexander Gray AssociatesSP-Arte 2018Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates
SP-Arte 2018
Installation view

Alexander Gray AssociatesSP-Arte 2018Installation view

Alexander Gray Associates
SP-Arte 2018
Installation view

Frank Bowling, PARTING SSTOO, 2016

Frank Bowling

PARTING SSTOO, 2016

Acrylic on collaged and printed canvas

67.24h x 56.34w in (170.80h x 143.10w cm)

Polly Apfelbaum, The Potential of Women, 2017

Polly Apfelbaum

The Potential of Women, 2017

Gouache on paper

17.50h x 22.50w in (44.45h x 57.15w cm)

Luis Camnitzer, Meanwhile, 2014

Luis Camnitzer

Meanwhile, 2014

Glass, brass plaque, cork, and aluminum

12.75h x 2.75w x 2.75d in (32.39h x 6.99w x 6.99d cm)

Luis Camnitzer, A) Objeto Cubierto Por Su Propia Imagen. B) Objeto Cubierto Por La Imagen Del Observador., 1971-1974

Luis Camnitzer

A) Objeto Cubierto Por Su Propia Imagen. B) Objeto Cubierto Por La Imagen Del Observador., 1971-1974

Mixed media

13.50h x 9.90w x 2d in (34.29h x 25.15w x 5.08d cm)

Luis Camnitzer, Esto es un espejo. Tu eres una frase escrita., 1966-73

Luis Camnitzer

Esto es un espejo. Tu eres una frase escrita., 1966-73

Graphite on paper

22.25h x 30.75w in (56.52h x 78.11w cm)

Luis Camnitzer, La Milagrosa Aparicion de un Punto, 1971-73

Luis Camnitzer

La Milagrosa Aparicion de un Punto, 1971-73

Graphite and pigment on paper

22.38h x 31w in (56.83h x 78.74w cm)

Luis Camnitzer, Timelanguage, 2016

Luis Camnitzer

Timelanguage, 2016

Xerox toner on laid paper in 14 parts

12.25h x 18.75w in (31.11h x 47.63w cm) each

Edition of 12

Melvin Edwards, Angola, 1992

Melvin Edwards

Angola, 1992

Welded steel

11.75h x 10.25w x 12d in (29.85h x 26.04w x 30.48d cm)

Melvin Edwards, For Miyashiro, 2017

Melvin Edwards

For Miyashiro, 2017

Welded steel

15.50h x 7.50w x 6.50d in (39.37h x 19.05w x 16.51d cm)

Lorraine O'Grady, Miscegenated Family Album (A Mother's Kiss), T: Candace and Devonia; B: Nefertiti and daughter, 1980/1994

Lorraine O'Grady

Miscegenated Family Album (A Mother's Kiss), T: Candace and Devonia; B: Nefertiti and daughter, 1980/1994

Cibachrome prints

37h x 26w in (93.98h x 66.04w cm)

Edition of 8

Kay Rosen, Echos, 2013

Kay Rosen

Echos, 2013

Acrylic gouache on watercolor paper

30.25h x 22.50w in (76.84h x 57.15w cm)​

Kay Rosen, Parrot, 2013

Kay Rosen

Parrot, 2013

Acrylic gouache on watercolor paper

30.25h x 22.50w in (76.84h x 57.15w cm)

Hassan Sharif, One to Thirteen, 2008

Hassan Sharif

One to Thirteen, 2008

Ink and pencil on paper

23.35h x 16.54w in (59.30h x 42w cm)​

Hassan Sharif, Rug, Cotton Rope, and Glue, 2013

Hassan Sharif

Rug, Cotton Rope, and Glue, 2013

Mixed media

57.50h x 26.40w x 1.60d in (146.05h x 67.06w x 4.06d cm)

Press Release

SP-Arte | April 11 – 15, 2018 | São Paulo | Stand H11

Bienal Pavilion
Parque Ibirapuera, portão 3
Avenida Pedro Álvares Cabral, s/n
São Paulo, Brazil

Alexander Gray Associates presented an exhibition of the conceptually parallel artistic practices of Gallery artists from diverse geographical and cultural contexts, featuring recent and historical works by Polly Apfelbaum, Frank Bowling, Luis Camnitzer, Melvin Edwards, Lorraine O’Grady, Kay Rosen, and Hassan Sharif.

Polly Apfelbaum’s artistic practice is distinguished by a hybridized aesthetic that fuses traditions of painting, craft, and installation. In her recent gouaches entitled The Potential of Women (2017), she draws inspiration from the 2017 Women’s March, creating compositions that appropriate Rudolph de Harek’s cover design for the 1963 book The Potential of Woman to forward a message of female empowerment.

For over five decades, Frank Bowling’s painting practice has been defined by an integration of autobiography and postcolonial geopolitics into abstract compositions. Parting SSTOO (2016) recalls the artist’s earlier Poured Paintings from the 1970s, harnessing the expressive potential of drips and pours to communicate a visual experience of gestural immediacy. The work belongs to a series of paintings the artist created from printed canvases gifted to him by Arlington Withers, a fellow artist and friend. Incorporating strips of Withers’ work into his own piece, Bowling fuses the abstract with the collaborative as part of his ongoing investigation into the nature and possibilities of painting.

Luis Camnitzer’s diverse practice uses language as a medium to explores such subjects as repression under systems of power, pedagogical norms, and the deconstruction of familiar frameworks. In Timelanguage (2016), Camnitzer harnesses the potential of language to construct images. A portfolio of Xerox prints, the work spells out the made-up word “Timelanguage” one letter at a time. Printed on a gradient from a light gray to black so that the first print is the lightest and the last is the most pigmented, the sequence uses visual markers of accumulation and addition to signifying the passage of time and information.

Melvin Edwards’ steel sculptures reflect his engagement with the history of race, labor, and violence, as well as with themes of the African Diaspora. Distinguished by their formal simplicity and powerful materiality, works like Angola (1992) weld together industrial objects like railroad spikes, hammer heads, chains, and other tools to create evocative assemblages that present utilitarian materials as both art objects and metaphors—symbols of personal and collective histories.

Lorraine O’Grady’s practice spans a variety of mediums and explores the cultural construction of identity. In Miscegenated Family Album (1980/1994), O’Grady attempts to resolve her troubled relationship with her deceased sister Devonia by inserting their story into that of Nefertiti and her younger sister Mutnedjmet. Through a series of photographs, O’Grady builds on the remarkable physical resemblance between Nefertiti and her sister to create a “novel in space” on motherhood, husbands, and aging. Drawing parallels between Ancient Egypt and the United States, the photographs present both families as products of nearly identical historical forces.

Known for her text-based works, Kay Rosen has used language as her primary material and subject for her paintings, drawings, editions, and installations since the 1980s. By playing with different approaches to typography and layout, format and scale, and space and color, Rosen’s compositions explore the many avenues of language and how it can be represented visually. In Echos (2013), Rosen visually represents an echo, repeating the word four times so that it intersects with itself, illustrating the auditory experience of a noise reflecting off various surfaces.

Recognized as a pioneer of conceptual art and experimental practice in the Middle East, Hassan Sharif's artworks encompass performance, installation, drawing, painting, and assemblage. One to Thirteen (2008) belongs to Sharif’s Semi-System series, which explores a systematic approach to art-making based on rhythmic steps and random results. Despite a repetitive set of rules, Sharif allowed for unlimited outcomes in his work. As he remarked before his death in 2016, “you don’t predict what you see, or what I will make. It just happens. … In the broader sense, there is never direction, even, in the middle of the sea, the ocean.”

About SP-Arte
Created in 2005, SP-Arte – São Paulo International Art Festival – is a global art event that brings together renowned art and design galleries representing more than 2,000 artists in the historical Oscar Niemeyer Bienal Pavilion. During the event, local museums and cultural institutions host a strong parallel program that includes panel discussions, exhibition openings, and special visits that offer an overview of the contemporary art circuit. SP-Arte is an essential component of the Latin-American art landscape and is positioned as a rallying point of the arts, that also strengthens and supports the country’s creative economy.