For the 2018 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, Lehmann Maupin (Booth G24) will present a selection of artists including Kader Attia, McArthur Binion, Heidi Bucher, Teresita Fernández, Liza Lou, Angel Otero, Do Ho Suh, Cecilia Vicuña, and Nari Ward. Additionally, the gallery will present South African artist Nicholas Hlobo for the fair’s curated Kabinett section. This year’s presentation exemplifies Lehmann Maupin's commitment to promoting diverse, international artists, with an emphasis on artists who push the boundaries of their chosen material.
On view will be large-scale works by Liza Lou, who recently inaugurated the gallery's new Chelsea flagship this year with her first exhibition in New York in over a decade. For more than 20 years, Lou has worked with glass beads to investigate and confront the art historical, cultural, social, ethical and economic implications that surround this loaded material. Lou’s most recent works included in the fair encompass painting and sculpture to expand the formal and thematic scope of her chosen medium. Teresita Fernández will also debut a new work made entirely from thousands of pieces of raw charcoal, a material she has used for its elemental connection to fire, and as a metaphor for historic and contemporary American violence. Fernández’s piece, Untitled (Specter), depicts a ghost-like, smoky silhouette hovering in the shape of the continental United States, and proposes a more urgent alternative to romantic notions of the “American landscape.” She is interested in giving visibility to the erased, distorted, and invisible narratives that are often omitted or deliberately obscured in our perception of what we think of as American.
The gallery will also present mixed media works from the estate of Heidi Bucher, who received critical acclaim for her retrospective at Parasol unit in London this year, and will have her inaugural exhibition at the gallery in New York in May 2019. Bucher’s latex on canvas works, molded from familiar domestic spaces like her home and studio, offer poetic visualization of the complex relationship between humans and the spaces they inhabit. Bucher’s work is interestingly aligned with Do Ho Suh, a longtime artist in the Lehmann Maupin program. Bringing these two artist’s work together physically for the first time, the gallery will present an installation of one of Suh’s immersive "Hubs,” an exact architectural replica of the breakfast nook in the artist’s home in Korea, rendered in ethereal, colorful fabric. For Suh, the spaces we inhabit also contain psychological energy, and in his work he makes visible those markers of memories, personal experiences, and a sense of security.
Additional highlights include recent works by French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, whom is currently on view at Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong through December, and paintings by Chicago-based artist McArthur Binion, shown ahead of the artist’s inaugural show with the gallery in New York in January 2019. Over 40 years, Binion has defied classification as an artist. At first glance, his grid paintings appear to be composed in typical minimalist style, which upon further inspection reveal densely layered, multimedia works with extensive visual reference to the artist’s personal history. New and recent work by Nari Ward will also be on view in advance of the artist’s February 2019 exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, including a new sculpture from his “LiquorSoul” series. Ward has long been recognized for his use of found or sourced materials that reflect the history of their original habitats. Ward intentionally inserts these materials into his artworks with ambiguous and metaphorical purpose to build upon the objects’ histories and infuse his work with new, open-ended meaning.
Kabinett: Nicholas Hlobo
For the 2018 Kabinett sector, Lehmann Maupin will present a carefully selected installation of works by South African artist Nicholas Hlobo. Comprised of recent sculpture and mixed media works on canvas, the presentation highlights Hlobo’s ability to merge his signature materials of ribbon, leather, canvas, and found objects, with conceptual specificity to address complex issues of identity. At the core of Hlobo’s practice is the exploration of his own identity, as he attempts to ascertain qualities that exist outside of codifying labels associated with gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. Language and narrative play both a formal and conceptual role in Hlobo’s work. As a member of the Xhosa people, Hlobo titles his work in the Xhosa language, imbuing each piece with a subtle personal narrative. Along with the artist’s use of his own native Xhosa language, visual innuendo plays a key role in Hlobo’s practice. Recurring imagery of phalluses, ovaries and other bodily forms engage the viewer in critical conversations about sexual identity, masculinity and ethnicity.
Hlobo was recently featured in an episode from Season 9 of Art21’s Art in the Twenty-First Century, and will have a solo exhibition at SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, opening January 24, 2019.