Gabriele Evertz “Exaltation”

Minus Space

[Image: Gabriele Evertz "ZimZum" (2019) Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 in.]

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MINUS SPACE presents the solo exhibition Gabriele Evertz: Exaltation. This is the Brooklyn, New York-based artist’s third solo exhibition at the gallery and it will present a suite of new abstract color paintings.

Color has been the defining subject matter of Gabriele Evertz’s artistic practice for the past three decades. Her exhibition Exaltation presents new large-format abstract paintings that deepen and extend her color research and experimentation. In her new work, Evertz foregrounds “the intense, pure colors of the sun spectrum as seen against a changing field of variously increasing or decreasing light.” She presents these color constructs in fluctuating combinations of vertical bands and diagonal lines that together form energetic zigzags.

Although she initiates new paintings objectively, Evertz finds that “the world seems to have a way to insinuate itself into the work.” Her paintings first address the wonder of sight through the psychological and physiological effects of color, but direct viewers to engage with many other aspects of the human experience, including biology, chemistry, physics, optics, philosophy, literature, and history.

Evertz’s paintings are experiential. “We see color with our mind,” she states. She considers the viewer an equal partner who completes the purpose and meaning of her work. Evertz continues, “Viewing a painting in distance and duration - or space and time - is seeing with your inner self. You can read the painting in your own way, according to your cultural history.” Her ultimate desire is to unlock the potential for viewers “to see and engage passionately in untold visual discoveries.” About her exhibition, Evertz affirms, “this is my most resolute work - ‘entschlossen’, as Heidegger would say - and I believe, my most ecstatic series of paintings.”

Gabriele Evertz (b. 1945 Berlin, Germany) has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions internationally, including in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States. Her recent museum exhibitions include the Columbus Museum (Columbus, OH), Heckscher Museum (Huntington, NY), Hillwood Art Museum (Brookville, NY), Louisiana Art & Science Museum (Baton Rouge, LA), MoMA PS1 (Long Island City, NY), Museo de Art Contemporáneo (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Osthaus Museum Hagen (Hagen, Germany), Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum (Miami, FL), and Ulrich Museum (Wichita, KS).

Her work is included in many public collections worldwide, such as the Art in Embassies Program of the U.S. Department of State, British Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Columbus Museum of Art, Ewing Gallery / University of Tennessee Knoxville, Hallmark Collection, Harvard University Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mississippi Museum of Art, Museo de Art Contemporáneo (Buenos Aires), Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Museum of Modern Art / Library Special Collection, Museum Modern Art (Hünfeld), New York Public Library, New Jersey State Museum, Osthaus Museum Hagen, Phillips Collection, Princeton University Library, St. Lawrence University Art Museum, Stiftung für Konstruktive und Konkrete Kunst (Zürich), Whitney Museum of American Art, and Wilhelm Hack Museum, among others.

In addition to her painting practice, Evertz was Professor of Art, Painting in Hunter College’s Department of Art & Art History, NYC from 1990-2018. She is a key protagonist in the renowned Hunter Color School, alongside other color painters, including Vincent Longo, Doug Ohlson, Robert Swain, and Sanford Wurmfeld.

Over the past fifteen years, Evertz has also curated several critically-acclaimed artist retrospectives and exhibitions, including Dual Current: Inseparable Elements in Painting and Architecture; Visual Sensations: Robert Swain Paintings, 1967-2010; Presentational Painting III; Seeing Red: An International Exhibition of Nonobjective Painting (co-curated with Michael Fehr); Set in Steel: The Sculpture of Antoni Milkowski; and Mac Wells: Light into Being (co-curated with Robert Swain).