12 November – 19 December 2020
New York, 69th Street
Artists included in ‘To Form a More Perfect Union’ are Rita Ackermann, Louise Bourgeois, George Condo, Marlene Dumas, Charles Gaines, Robert Gober, Philip Guston, David Hammons, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Rashid Johnson, Mike Kelley, Takesada Matsutani, Paul McCarthy, Marisa Merz, Carol Rama, and Lorna Simpson.
Beginning 12 November, Hauser & Wirth will debut ‘To Form a More Perfect Union,’ a special presentation juxtaposing significant works of postwar modern and contemporary art to explore unexpected affinities and suggest fresh art historical narratives revealed by the context of our troubled times.
Organized by Koji Inoue, International Senior Director for Post-war and Contemporary Art, ‘To Form a More Perfect Union’ responds to the collective experience of intense fracturing and dislocation that have characterized this year of 2020 — the social distancing that has separated us physically, the social justice movement that has laid bare deep ravines of separation in our society.
On view are paintings, works on paper, sculpture, and video installation made by 17 artists over the past fifty years. By long predating our current time of trauma, these objects suggest that the search for integration of the corporeal and the emotional is fundamental and universal, and that the struggle for a resolved sense of connection to one another is an ongoing effort without end.
‘To Form a More Perfect Union’ is open for timed viewing appointments. To book a timed viewing appointment, please make a reservation here. Viewing appointments will be released on a weekly basis. Please review viewing guidelines prior to your visit.
The opposing impulses of creation and destruction mark the touchstone of the Hungarian-born, New York-based artist Rita Ackermann’s practice, which continues to evolve and manifest itself in the shift from representation to abstraction.
Born in France in 1911, and working in America from 1938 until her death in 2010, Louise Bourgeois is recognized as one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th Century. For over seven decades, Bourgeois’s creative process was fueled by an introspective reality, often rooted in cathartic...
Born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1957, George Condo lives and works in New York City. He studied Art History and Music Theory at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, where he became particularly inspired by a course on Baroque and Rococo painting. He moved to Boston and played in...
A pivotal figure in the field of conceptual art, Charles Gaines’ body of work engages formulas and systems that interrogate relationships between the objective and the subjective realms. Using a generative approach to create a series of works in a variety of mediums, he has built a bridge between the...
Philip Guston (1913 – 1980) is one of the great luminaries of twentieth-century art. His commitment to producing work from genuine emotion and lived experience ensures its enduring impact. Guston’s legendary career spanned a half century, from 1930 to 1980. His paintings—particularly the liberated and instinctual forms of his late...
Jenny Holzer is an American conceptual and installation artist whose work deploys text in public spaces across an array of media, including electronic signs, carved stone, paintings, billboards, and printed materials. Holzer’s oeuvre provokes public debate and illuminates social and political justice. Celebrated for her inimitable use of language and projects in the public...
La obra de Roni Horn se caracteriza por la incertidumbre y la imposibilidad de concluirla. En toda su obra es importante su interés por la naturaleza mutable de la identidad, el significado y la percepción, así como la noción de duplicidad, cuestiones que siguen impulsando la práctica de Horn.
Born in Chicago in 1977, Rashid Johnson is among an influential cadre of contemporary American artists whose work employs a wide range of media to explore themes of art history, individual and shared cultural identities, personal narratives, literature, philosophy, materiality, and critical history. Johnson received a BA in Photography from Columbia College in Chicago and studied for his masters at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Johnson's practice quickly expanded to embrace a wide range of media--including sculpture, painting, drawing, film making, and installation--yielding a complex multidisciplinary practice that incorporates diverse materials rich with symbolism and personal history. Johnsons work is known for its narrative embedding of a pointed range of everyday materials and objects, often associated with his childhood and frequently referencing aspects of history and cultural identity. Many of Johnson’s more recent works delve into existential themes such as personal and collective anxiety, interiority, and liminal space.
Mike Kelley is widely considered one of the most influential artists of our time. Originally from a suburb outside of Detroit, Kelley attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, before moving to Southern California in 1976 to study at California Institute of the Arts from which he received an MFA...
From the early 1960s until the 1970s Matsutani was a key member of the ‘second generation’ of the influential post war Japanese art collective, the Gutai Art Association. Over five decades Matsutani has developed a unique visual language of form and materials. As part of the Gutai group, Matsutani experimented...
‘To Form a More Perfect Union‘ is on view now through 19 December 2020 at Hauser & Wirth New York 69th Street.
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