PARIS.- Five Paintings 2013-2015 is Wade Guyton's first exhibition in a French museum. It is based on the painting Untitled (2013), which entered the collections of the Musée d'Art Moderne in 2022, thanks to a special donation.

Created between 2013 and 2015, the five paintings are from a period during which Guyton made a variety of black paintings. Four of them were conceived from a single Photoshop file composed exclusively of black: the printed image competes with white, its reserve space. This creates an ambiguous relationship between figure and background and, more broadly, between the works and the wall on which they are hung. The porosity of the boundaries creates a tension between abstraction and figuration that should allow each painting to find the right form.

The fifth canvas in this body of works, never exhibited before, extends this tension by juxtaposing two exhibition views on which there is a 'mise en abyme' of the two monumental paintings presented here.

Wade Guyton was born in Hammond, Indiana, U.S.A., in 1972. He lives and work in New York. Since the early 2000s, Guyton has pursued, with a notable consistency, an investigation into the condition and impact of digital image production. Guyton purposefully misuses his printer by challenging its commands and materials that exceed its design specifications. As a result, the digital work everts its inherent conflicts questioning the conditional nature of its visualization.

In his latest series, Guyton intensifies the interplay between painting and photography by integrating cellphone snapshot of paintings drying on the floor, views of and from the studio, screen captures, and enlarged bitmaps.

Wade Guyton is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Award in Art (2014); the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts (2004); the Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Grant (2003); the Artists Space Independent Projects Grant (2002); the Delfina Studio Trust, London (2000).

Wade Guyton has had major solo exhibitions at the Museum Ludwig, Koln (2019); Serpentine Gallery, London (2017); Brandhorst Museum, Munich (2017); Museo MADRE, Naples (2017); MAMCO, Geneva (2016); Le Consortium, Dijon & Académie Conti, Vosne-Romanée (2016); Kunsthalle Zürich (2013); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2012-2013); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2010; the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (2009); Museum d’Arte Moderna Bologna (MAMbo) (2008); the Portikus in Frankfurt am Main (2008); Kunstverein Hamburg (2005), among others.

He was also featured in several international group shows and Biennales such as Fondazione Prada, Venise, Italy (2021) ; Kanal - Centre Pompidou, Brussels, Belgium (2020) ; The Kitchen, New York (2020); Frac Normandie Rouen (2020); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2019); Aïshti Foundation, Beirut (2016); Fridericianum, Kassel (2016); Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2015); Kunsthall Oslo (2014); Punta della Dogana, Venice (2016); the Carnegie International (2014); the Venice Biennale, Arsenale (2013); MAMCO, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva (2013); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2013); Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2011); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2008); the Whitney Biennial (2004).

His works have joined the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, ILL; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; FRAC Ile-de-France — Le Plateau; MAMCO, Musee D’art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCO), Geneva; Neue Pinakothek, Münich; Kunsthaus Zürich; Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Dallas Museum of Art; Kunsthaus Zürich; Kunstmuseum Basel; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, ILL; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Pinakothek der Moderne, Münich; Princeton University Art Museum, NJ; Musée National d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris.

Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
Wade Guyton: Five Paintings 2013-2015
October 13th, 2023 - February 26th, 2024