Wild Strawberries – Gallery 125 Newbury (New York)

Deana Lawson, Portal (2017). Courtesy of the artist, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles and New York, and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York
Martin Cid Magazine
Martin Cid Magazine

New York – Gallery 125 Newbury is pleased to announce the opening of its new project space in New York helmed by Arne Glimcher, founder of Pace Gallery, located at the corner of Broadway and Walker Street in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. The new space will open to the public on September 30, 2022 with Wild Strawberries, an intergenerational group show of 17 artists whose works traffic in the dreamlike exchange between threat and seduction.

Paul Thek
Paul Thek, Untitled (Hand with Ring) (1967). Photo: Richard Gary. © The Estate of George Paul Thek; Courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York

Inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 cinematic masterpiece, Wild Strawberries brings together sculpture, painting, photography, and film by a wide range of artists, including Lynda Benglis, Lee Bontecou, Julie Curtiss, Alex Da Corte, Doreen Lynette Garner, Robert Gober, David Hammons, Deana Lawson, Shahryar Nashat,
Brandon Ndife, Kathleen Ryan, Lucas Samaras, Max Hooper Schneider, Kiki Smith, Paul Thek, Hannah Wilke, and Zhang Huan. The exhibition will span the 3,900 square-foot space, which features 17-foot ceilings and has been fully renovated by architects Enrico Bonetti and Dominic Kozerski of Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture.

In the extended dream sequence that opens Bergman’s film, a hand reaches out to make contact with the shoulder of a faceless figure, whose body is suddenly reduced to an empty pile of clothing from which liquid oozes over the sidewalk. Such surreal transformations recur throughout the works in Wild Strawberries, implicating the body as a fragile and contingent thing, a locus for anxiety and pleasure. In addition to works of painting, sculpture, and photography, the exhibition will also include excerpts from narrative and experimental films that share a similar sensibility, which have been selected in collaboration with filmmaker and scholar Vito Adriaensens.

Lucas Samaras
Lucas Samaras, Untitled, 1964 © Lucas Samaras, courtesy Pace Gallery

Wild Strawberries cultivates a garden of widely divergent practices, which shape and reshape the body. Probing the powers of sensation, the works in the exhibition investigate art’s capacity to produce pleasure in the same gesture that it excites horror.

The exhibition is grounded in the work of key figures of the post-1960s generation who mobilized the aesthetics of bodily abjection toward fascinating, disturbing, and political ends. The nightmarish forms of Bontecou are juxtaposed with the exquisite formlessness of Benglis, the corporeal poetry of Wilke with the cruel delights of Samaras and Thek. Involving the viewer on a visceral level, these works are brought into dialogue with sculpture and photography from the 1980s and ‘90s by Hammons, Smith, Gober, and Zhang. The language of objection becomes haunted by struggles of power, politics, race, and gender, which lie embedded in the formal presence of the work.

Oscillating between feelings of repulsion and attraction, Wild Strawberries traces this dialogue further in the work of an emerging cohort of contemporary artists, including Da Corte, Curtiss, Garner, Nashat, Ndife, Ryan, and Schneider. Their practices draw on earlier precedents while forging new cross-pollinations between the worlds of painting, sculpture, film, photography, and installation.

Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith, Virgin Mary, 1992 © Kiki Smith, courtesy Pace Gallery.

Gallery 125 Newbury will function as an expanded platform for Arne Glimcher’s curatorial vision Gallery 125 Newbury will maintain an independent program, but will operate in association with Pace. The space will eschew the traditional gallery model by presenting up to five exhibitions per year with a focus on thematic group shows of work by established and emerging artists both within and beyond Pace’s program. Kathleen McDonnell, Talia Rosen, and Oliver Shultz will serve alongside Glimcher as directors of the new space.

Wild Strawberries Artist List

Lynda Benglis (b. 1941)
Lee Bontecou (b. 1931)
Julie Curtiss (b. 1982)
Alex Da Corte (b. 1980)
Doreen Lynette Garner (b. 1986)
Robert Gober (b. 1954)
David Hammons (b. 1943)
Deana Lawson (b. 1979)
Shahryar Nashat (b. 1975)
Brandon Ndife (b. 1991)
Kathleen Ryan (b. 1984)
Lucas Samaras (b. 1936)
Max Hooper Schneider (b. 1982)
Kiki Smith (b. 1954)
Paul Thek (1933 – 1988)
Hannah Wilke (1940 – 1993)
Zhang Huan (b. 1966)

125 Newbury is a project space in New York City helmed by Arne Glimcher, Founder and Chairman of Pace Gallery. Named for the original location of Pace, which Glimcher opened at 125 Newbury Street in Boston in 1960, the gallery is located at 395 Broadway in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, at the corner of Walker Street. Occupying a 3,900 square-foot ground-floor space in a landmark building with 17-foot ceilings, the interior of 125 Newbury has been fully renovated by Enrico Bonetti and Dominic Kozerski of Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture.

Guided by Glimcher’s six decades of pioneering exhibition-making and steadfast commitment to close collaboration with artists, 125 Newbury presents up to five exhibitions per year. The gallery focuses both on thematic group shows as well as solo exhibitions by emerging, established, and historical artists. The 125 Newbury team is led by directors Arne Glimcher, Kathleen McDonnell, Talia Rosen, and Oliver Shultz, who work together to develop cutting-edge and thought-provoking exhibitions with a global, cross-generational perspective.

Pace is a leading international art gallery representing some of the most influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century, holding decades-long relationships with Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. Pace enjoys a unique U.S. heritage spanning East and West coasts through its early support of artists central to the Abstract Expressionist and Light and Space movements. Since its founding by Arne Glimcher in 1960, Pace has developed a distinguished legacy as an artist-first gallery that mounts seminal historical and contemporary exhibitions. Under the current leadership of President and CEO Marc Glimcher, Pace continues to support its artists and share their visionary work with audiences worldwide by remaining at the
forefront of innovation. Today, Pace has nine locations worldwide, including a European foothold in London and Geneva; two galleries in New York; Los Angeles; Palm Beach; East Hampton; and Hong Kong and Seoul, as well as an office and viewing room in Beijing.

Gallery 125 Newbury

395 Broadway at Walker St.
New York

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