Thomas Nozkowski “16 x 20”

Thomas Nozkowski “16 x 20”

The Pace Gallery (510 W 25th St)

This event has ended.

Pace Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings by Thomas Nozkowski, marking the gallery’s sixth solo show by the artist since 2007. The exhibition draws together approximately 25 paintings that span four decades of the artist’s career, from the 1970s through the early 2000s. Each of the vibrantly colored abstract paintings in the exhibition measures 16 x 20 inches – a common canvas size that the artist has used extensively throughout his career.

The first monograph of Nozkowski’s work was published in fall 2017 by Lund Humphries. Written by poet, art critic, and curator John Yau, Thomas Nozkowski is part of the publisher’s new series Contemporary Painters, edited by art critic Barry Schwabsky.

While abstract in style, each of Nozkowski’s paintings is rooted in a specific experience, event or place that the artist has encountered. Early on in his career, Nozkowski began to work on a 16 x 20-inch surface – consciously distancing himself from the dominance of gestural painting embodied by the Abstract Expressionists and countering the common critical proclamation of abstract painting’s end. By focusing himself on a small canvas, he deliberately constrained the possibility of the gesture and drew himself closer to the painting’s surface. As his practice has evolved from a concentration on biomorphic and geometric shapes to a more recent use of patterns and broken grids, Nozkowski has repeatedly used the 16 x 20-inch format to explore these complex and varied concerns. This exhibition will provide a rare overview of these paintings, which have not been gathered together in a focused exhibition for over a decade.

“I like paintings that balance contradictions. I like paintings that look clear and simple at first glance and then sort of crumble under your gaze. And it’s even better if further looking enables you to put it together again, understand it in a new way.” – Thomas Nozkowski

Thomas Nozkowski (b. 1944, Teaneck, New Jersey) is recognized for his richly colored and intimately scaled abstract paintings and drawings that push the limits of visual language. His artistic strategy stems from an awareness of perception and the desire to explore the possibilities of seeing, at once grounded in reality and released from specific legibility. His concurrent practices of painting and drawing reflect on specific places and experiences—from the deeply symbolic to the notational—translating sensations and memories into abstract compositions. Through this process, Nozkowski often returns to certain ideas across several discrete works, devoting weeks, months, or, in some cases, years exploring the full range of possibilities for a given form, color, or gesture. To date, Nozkowski’s paintings have been featured in more than 300 museum and gallery exhibitions worldwide, including over 70 solo shows.

Nozkowski lives and works in High Falls, New York. He has been represented by Pace since 2007.

Pace is a leading contemporary art gallery representing many of the most significant international artists and estates of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Founded by Arne Glimcher in Boston in 1960 and currently led by Marc Glimcher, Pace has been a constant, vital force in the art world and has introduced many renowned artists’ work to the public for the rst time. Pace has mounted more than 900 exhibitions, including scholarly shows that have subsequently traveled to museums, and published over 450 exhibition catalogues. Today, Pace has nine locations worldwide: three galleries in New York; one in London; one in Palo Alto, California; one in Beijing; and spaces in Hong Kong, Paris, and Seoul. In 2016, the gallery launched Pace Art + Technology, a new program dedicated to showcasing interdisciplinary art groups, collectives and studios whose works explore the confluence of art and technology.

Media

• Painting

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