Pace Gallery announces exclusive global representation of John Wesley Estate; Debut presentation at Frieze LA
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, November 22, 2024


Pace Gallery announces exclusive global representation of John Wesley Estate; Debut presentation at Frieze LA
John Wesley, Afternoon Sail at the Edge of the World, 1978. Acrylic on canvas, 48" × 60" (121.9 cm × 152.4 cm) © John Wesley; Courtesy of The John Wesley Foundation and Pace Gallery.



NEW YORK, NY.- Pace announced its exclusive and worldwide representation of the John Wesley estate. Wesley, who died in 2022 at age 93, is known for his flattened, idiosyncratic figurations that defy easy classification within any single artistic movement. Pace’s debut presentation of the artist’s work will take place at Frieze Los Angeles 2023, where his painting Afternoon Sail at the Edge of the World (1978) will be featured on the gallery’s booth.

Associated with Pop Art and later Minimalism, Wesley was a key figure in American art from the 1960s until his death last year. Drawing inspiration from images in comics and other mass media, the painter cultivated a distinctive, graphic style characterized by bold, weighted lines, unmodulated color, and an absurdist-edge. Eroticism, humor, and an ineffable disquietude cut across Wesley’s works in a manner that critics have likened to Surrealism, though the artist asserted that he had no conscious intentions to emulate the Surrealists.

Wesley explored a wide range of imagery in his work. He produced a large body of landscapes regularly depicting tranquil shorelines and seascapes, but also rolling hills and urban skylines. In his figurations, the human body and its constituent parts are often used to experiment with repetition as a formal device. Wesley also frequently reimagined characters from popular culture—including Dagwood Bumstead from the Blondie comic strip—in scenes across his oeuvre.

Many of Wesley’s paintings are concerned with enactments of balance and symmetry, examining nuances of sexuality and desire through a formal language marked by unexpected crispness and precision. Despite their dynamism, the artist’s uncanny figurations are underpinned by a peculiar, psychological heft.




Born in Los Angeles in 1928, Wesley was part of a generation of artists emerging from the Great Depression and World War II. When he was five years old, the artist found his father—having died from a stroke—on the bathroom floor of the family home. The traumatizing event had a major impact on the artist, who worked blue-collar jobs by day and studied art by night in his twenties. He took a job in the illustration department of the Northrop Aircraft Corporation in 1953, and in 1960 he relocated to New York, working first as a postal clerk. He would live and work in New York for the rest of his life and career.

Among the early milestones of Wesley’s career was his inclusion in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 1959 Annual exhibition, the 1968–69 Painting Annual at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and Documenta 5 in Kassel in 1972. Major exhibitions dedicated to his work in more recent years include a retrospective at the PS1 Contemporary Art Center, now MoMA PS1, in New York in 2000–2001 and a 2009 retrospective at the Fondazione Prada, organized by curator Germano Celant during the Venice Biennale that year.

Dan Flavin and Donald Judd were among Wesley’s friends and supporters, and Judd’s Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas houses a permanent exhibition space dedicated to Wesley’s work. In 1982, when Judd invited him to Marfa, Wesley produced a series of paintings that are part of Chinati’s collection today. Chinati’s holdings include paintings, prints, and works on paper created by Wesley as early as 1963.
Pace will work in association with Fredericks & Freiser in New York, Wesley’s gallery of almost 30 years. Marc Glimcher, CEO of Pace Gallery, says: “John Wesley, a largely self-taught artist who gave figuration a new edge in the 20th century, produced a body of work that is at once compelling and disarming, buoyant and enigmatic. He played a huge role in shaping American culture in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, utilizing the aesthetics of mass media in his poignant, witty commentaries on issues of politics and sex. Wesley’s work can be understood in the lineages of Pop Art and Minimalism, two movements that are of great interest to me and to Pace. I’ve had the pleasure of revisiting the John Wesley Gallery at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa several times, where the spectacular works on view speak to the special relationship between Wesley and Donald Judd, situating him within a cohort of other artists also breathing new life into some of Minimalism’s core tenets. We’re thrilled to welcome the Wesley estate to the gallery, and we look forward to sharing the artist’s work with our audiences around the world.”

In addition to the Chinati Foundation, the artist’s work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.; the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; the Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and other international institutions.

John Wesley (b. 1928, Los Angeles; d. 2022, New York) was an American painter known for his figurations rendered in a flattened, graphic style. Wesley’s works often examine sexuality, eroticism, and desire through a formal language marked by unexpected crispness and precision. Drawing inspiration from images in mass media, the artist used unmodulated color, bold lines, and repeating forms to forge humorous yet distinctly unsettling compositions. A largely self-taught artist, Wesley moved from LA to New York in 1960. Major retrospectives of his work have been staged at the PS1 Contemporary Art Center, now MoMA PS1, in New York in 2000–2001 and the Fondazione Prada in 2009 during the Venice Biennale that year. His work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.; the Chinati Foundation, Marfa; the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; the Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and other international institutions.










Today's News

February 10, 2023

Simone Forti's experiments transcribing bodies in motion

The Phillips Collection presents Linling Lu's 'Soundwaves' as 2023 Spring Intersections Project

Doyle to auction fine paintings, prints & sculpture on February 15

The biggest penguin that ever existed was a 'monster bird'

An artist with roots in Nairobi and New York imagines a new destiny

Mendes Wood DM announces the opening of its new gallery space in Paris

Sotheby's to offer the Al Zayani Collection of Middle Eastern Modern & Contemporary Art

Pace Gallery announces exclusive global representation of John Wesley Estate; Debut presentation at Frieze LA

Hermès wins MetaBirkins lawsuit, jurors not convinced NFTs are art

Hip-hop, still fly at 50

Philbrook cements commitment to contemporary art with new hires and acquisitions

February auctions at Bonhams Skinner

SFMOMA announces the appointment of Sheila Shin as Chief Experience Officer

Soul told Black musicians' stories. Its archives are going digital.

Review: A hip-hop take on Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers

'Lucy' review: There's something about the babysitter

At Cooper Union, a Russian design show caught in a political crossfire

"Everything, Earth and Sky: An Exhibition of Haitian Art" on view at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU

Rockbund Art Museum appoints Guggenheim Curator X Zhu-Nowell as new Artistic Director

Ronald Blythe, scribe of the English countryside, dies at 100

In LA, Dudamel's influence extends beyond the concert hall

Ahlers & Ogletree announces highlights included in the American West / Native American auction

How 'Some Like It Hot' tunes in to the jazz age

LA Modern Auctions announces highlights of the 'Modern & Contemporary Art' sale

With Ocado, Simplify Your Life While Getting All Household Necessities In One App...

The Importance of Restaurant Interior Design

Loan Availability for Second-Hand Tractors in India

Checkwordcounter: 9 Tips to Write a Good Blog

The Importance of Custom Sports Medals

The Seven Best Traffic Apps of 2023




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful