Lehmann Maupin (Booth #C23) is pleased to announce a presentation of work by Helen Pashgian, Lari Pittman, and Nari Ward at Frieze New York. The artists represent both the newest additions to the gallery’s roster, with Los Angeles based artists Pashgian and Pittman both joining the gallery this year, as well as a veteran of the program, Nari Ward. Together, they demonstrate the gallery’s commitment to artists who push the boundaries of their chosen medium. For the occasion, Lehmann Maupin will also exhibit additional works by Pashgian at its gallery in Chelsea, 501 West 24th Street.
The works featured by Light and Space artist Helen Pashgian will include her cast epoxy spheres and a mounted wall work. Her Untitled (dates vary) spheres represent an origin point in Pashgian’s practice, as they are among the earliest forms the artist experimented with. These works appear to simultaneously trap and emanate light seemingly in opposition to the laws of physics, offering an ocular illusion that defies common perception.
Concurrent with Frieze New York, an installation of Pashgian’s Untitled (2009) column works will be on view in the Chelsea gallery. Installed in the gallery’s black box space for optimal viewing in person—as these works were intended to be experienced—the columns create an immersive environment that represents the most recent evolution of Pashgian’s practice. Several of the works presented in this special installation for Frieze Week were included in the landmark exhibition Space Shifters, organized by Ralph Rugoff at the Hayward Gallery in London (2018-19). Together, the three bodies of work on view at Frieze New York and in the gallery provide a comprehensive overview of this pioneering female figure of West Coast minimalism, whose influence is gaining increasing international understanding.
Also on view at Frieze New York are paintings by Lari Pittman that are emblematic of his signature style, which combines various methods of paint application, from using stencils and a spray gun to intricate free-hand brush strokes with figurative and decorative details. Pittman honed his idiosyncratic style while studying at CalArts, where he learned to undermine aesthetic hierarchies and embrace the decorative and applied arts. The body of work on view at the fair is specifically inspired by the genre of history painting, with an emphasis on the drama and ornamentation of the style, but is here recontextualized using symbols and references to the 21st century.
Finally, the gallery will present a new Nari Ward installation commissioned for the fair, entitled We the People (Arabic version) (2018). A variation of Ward’s installation created from shoelaces currently on view in Nari Ward: We the People at the New Museum, this edition translates the first words in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution to Arabic. The translation of the piece illuminates both the formal elements of the iconic calligraphy used in earlier editions of the work, as well as an impactful statement about who “we” are.