Jack Whitten
Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Jack Whitten
Focus Section, Stand F21
Randall's Island, New York, NY
Alexander Gray Associates participated in Frieze New York art fair, which featured an exhibition of new abstract paintings and works on paper by Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe and Jack Whitten. Shown together for the first time, both artists are critical examiners of abstract painting and artistic methodology. Linking the practices of drawing and experimental painting, the Gallery’s presentation of works by the two artists invites viewers to consider formal and metaphorical implications of composition and geometry, control and chance, process and evidence.
Through multiple practices as a painter, critic and educator, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe has challenged contemporary ideas of aesthetics and purpose in art since the 1970s. His highly-regarded writings on abstraction have fueled vital discourse around beauty and the role of post-Modern painting, drawing connections between art history, philosophy, fashion, and architecture. In his drawings and paintings, Gilbert-Rolfe collapses and re-arranges the Modernist grid, intensifying
and breaking down color, line and movement. On view are recently completed oil on linen paintings and gouache on paper drawings.
Since the 1970s Jack Whitten has consistently pushed the structural capacities of acrylic paint in producing large-scale minimalist abstractions, using tools to pull, squeeze, and rake color and texture. Beginning in the late 1980s, he has combined acrylic with various pigments and materials, cut and laid like ancient mosaic, or cast sculpturally. For Frieze New York, freshly produced “acrylic collages” are on view, which incorporate a black and white palette with an exploration of distilled geometry. Also on view are technically innovative works on paper which further push the medium of acrylic and its translucent and sculptural abilities.
About the Fair
Like its London sister fair, Frieze New York is housed in a bespoke structure and located in a unique setting – Randall’s Island Park, Manhattan, overlooking the East River.
The fair houses 180 galleries and will be designed by New York-based SO-IL architects. The exhibitors will comprise some of the most forward-thinking galleries from around the globe, bringing an international focus to the dynamic contemporary art scene in New York.