James Siena “Painting”

Pace Gallery (537 W 24th St.)

[Image: James Siena "Retrronr" (2018) acrylic on canvas, 90 x 70in. © James Siena, courtesy Pace Gallery.]

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Pace Gallery presents an exhibition of all new paintings by James Siena, marking the gallery’s sixth solo exhibition by the artist since joining the gallery in 2004. The exhibition will debut Siena’s first works using acrylic paint on large format canvases, all created in 2018.

The scale and medium of the new paintings mark a significant departure from Siena’s more intimate and intricate enamel on aluminum paintings, which the artist has been known for since the 1990s. The use of acrylic paint and stretched canvas as the support have introduced new levels of painterliness, physicality, and immediacy to his practice. Drawing together approximately 10 paintings ranging in size from 36” x 48” to 70” x 90”, the new pieces have evolved away from the object-ness quality of Siena’s earlier work yet maintain a consistency with his long-held focus on personal geometries and rule-based abstraction.

Best known for his unique process of creating complexly dense geometric abstractions, Siena’s practice is driven by predetermined, self-imposed sets of rules or “visual algorithms”. Since the 1990s, Siena’s use of enamel sign painting on aluminum supports has fostered a powerful precision and stark vibrancy within his work. The current exhibition reveals the artist breaking beyond those boundaries and exploring a parallel world of possibility, invention and clarity.

James Siena (b. 1957, Oceanside, California) is known for his production of complex, rule-based linear abstractions, which firmly situate his practice within the trajectory of modern American art. His work is often driven by self-imposed, predetermined sets of rules, or “visual algorithms,” which result in intensely concentrated, freehand geometric patterns. Although predominantly recognized for his vibrantly colored paintings and drawings, Siena works across a diverse range of media. Engaging in lithography, etching, woodcut, engraving, and sculpture, he articulates an ongoing investigation of technology and craft, biology and artifice.

Featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions, Siena’s work has been included in traveling exhibitions such as The Return of the Cadavre Exquis (1993–95), which opened at the Drawing Center, New York, and traveled to Washington, D.C.; Santa Monica, California; St. Louis; and Paris. He was included in the Invitational Exhibition, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (1999, 2000, 2015), as well as group shows at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York (1998), and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006, 2012, 2013). He received his first major solo exhibition, drawing and painting, in 2003 at the San Francisco Art Institute/Walter Galleries, which traveled to the University of Akron, Ohio. He was selected the following year for the 2004 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, organized one-artist exhibitions of his work in 2010 and 2015.

Siena’s work is held in museum collections throughout the United States, including the Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, among others.

Pace is a leading contemporary art gallery representing many of the most significant international artists and estates of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Under the leadership of President and CEO Marc Glimcher, Pace is a vital force within the art world and plays a critical role in shaping the history, creation, and engagement with modern and contemporary art. Since its founding by Arne Glimcher in 1960, Pace has developed a distinguished legacy for vibrant and dedicated relationships with renowned artists. As the gallery approaches the start of its seventh decade, Pace’s mission continues to be inspired by our drive to support the world’s most influential and innovative artists and to share their visionary work with people around the world.

Pace advances this mission through its dynamic global program, comprising ambitious exhibitions, artist projects, public installations, institutional collaborations, and curatorial research and writing. Today, Pace has ten locations worldwide: three galleries in New York; one in London; one in Geneva; one in Palo Alto, California; one in Beijing; two in Hong Kong; and one in Seoul. Pace will open a new flagship gallery in New York, anticipated for completion in fall 2019. In 2016, Pace joined with Futurecity to launch Future\Pace—an international cultural partnership innovating multidisciplinary projects for art in the public realm.