Louise Bourgeois
Since the cave paintings of Lascaux, the color red has played a starring role in the story of art history. Through the centuries, it has conjured emotions such as love, lust, and rage, and served as a symbol of wealth, war, revolution, and religious sacrifice. Red is one of the most powerful tools in an artist’s color arsenal. Its presence ensures bold visual impact and guarantees our immediate attention. Mnuchin Gallery is thus delighted to present Reds, an exhibition offering a focused look at artists’ use of red over sixty years, from the postwar period to the present day. The exhibition will include paintings and sculpture by twenty-five artists, including Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, and Mark Rothko, to name a few. The exhibition will be on view from April 27 through June 9, 2018.
For thousands of years red has been prized for its striking effect. Historically, its value stemmed from the sheer difficulty of obtaining the color itself, as only a few species of insects and plants produced it. A popular extraction method involved drying the cochineal bug, and since 70,000 insects were required for a single pound of pigment a highly competitive system of piracy developed among European countries bringing it from the New World. Its scarcity made it a luxury reserved for the only the wealthiest. Despite its availability today, red remains a color used to demarcate and distinguish objects of note.
This exhibition traces the myriad ways artists have harnessed red’s force across abstraction and figuration, painting and sculpture, to achieve remarkable proof of the color’s universal resonance. In paintings by Bacon, Bourgeois, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol, in which human figures or faces appear against intensely red backdrops, the color evokes narratives of love, violence, and tragedy for the paintings’ subjects. Other artists use the color to create immersive, meditative experiences for the viewer, whether by bathing him in red light, as in Dan Flavin’s Untitled (to Sabine and Holger), 1966-71, or by confronting him with an immense red void, as in Robert Motherwell’s Open No. 153: In Scarlet with White Line, 1970. In works such as Arshile Gorky’s Agony, 1947, and Yayoi Kusama’s No. Red A 1960, 1960, the artists’ use of red can be interpreted as an expression of their individual psychological experiences, whereas Franz Kline and Rothko’s monumental abstractions speak to a more universal “scale of human feeling, the human drama.” Eliminating such gesture and expression from painting, Josef Albers and Ad Reinhardt pair subtle, almost imperceptibly varied shades of red to create conceptual studies on color itself.
Reds comprises twenty-seven masterworks on loan from museums, foundations, and private collections. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue authored by Clayton Press.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Photography by Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.
Louise Bourgeois
Red Night
1946-48
oil on linen
30 x 60 inches (76.2 x 152.4 cm)
The George Economou Collection
Arshile Gorky
Agony
1947
oil on canvas
40 x 50 1/2 inches (101.6 x 128.3 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
A. Conger Goodyear Fund, 1950
Alexander Calder
Untitled
c. 1952
sheet metal, wire, and paint
58 x 71 inches (147.3 x 180.3 cm)
Calder Foundation, New York
Alexander Calder
Sumac VI
1952
sheet metal, wire, and paint
47 1/2 x 45 x 20 inches (120.7 x 114.3 x 50.8 cm)
Private collection
Ad Reinhardt
Abstract Painting, Red
1953
oil on canvas in artist's frame
canvas: 30 1/8 x 30 in. (76.5 x 76.2 cm)
frame: 32 ¼ x 32 in. (81.9 x 81.2 cm)
Private collection
Willem de Kooning
Composition
1955
oil, enamel, and charcoal on canvas
79 1/8 x 69 1/8 inches (201 x 175.6 cm)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Mark Rothko
Browns and Blacks in Reds
1957
oil on canvas
91 x 60 inches (231.1 x 152.4 cm)
Private collection
Kazuo Shiraga
Untitled
1959
oil on canvas
71 3/4 x 107 inches (182.2 x 271.8 cm)
Private collection
Yayoi Kusama
No. Red A 1960
1960
oil on canvas
71 x 63 in. (180.3 x 160 cm)
Grey Art Gallery
New York University Art Collection
Gift of Silvia Pizitz
Donald Judd
Untitled
1961
acrylic and sand on Masonite
48 x 60 inches (121.9 x 152.4 cm)
The George Economou Collection
Franz Kline
Red Painting
1961
oil on canvas
109 13/16 x 78 1/8 inches (278.9 x 198.4 cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Gift of the American Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc., Leonard A. Lauder, President
Andy Warhol
Red Elvis
1962
silkscreen ink and acrylic on canvas
69 3/4 x 52 inches (177.2 x 132.1 cm)
Courtesy The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT
Dan Flavin
untitled (to Sabine and Holger)
1966-71
red fluorescent light
96 x 96 x 5 inches (243.8 x 243.8 x 12.7 cm)
Private collection
Josef Albers
Study for Homage to the Square
1967
oil on masonite
24 x 24 inches (61 x 61 cm)
Private collection
Robert Motherwell
Open No. 153: In Scarlet with White Line
1970
acrylic on canvas
86 1/2 x 149 inches (219.7 x 378.46 cm)
Private collection
Francis Bacon
Study of George Dyer
1971
oil on canvas
78 x 58 inches (198.1 x 147.3 cm)
Private collection
Ellsworth Kelly
Chatham X: Black Red
1971
oil on canvas
108 x 95 3/4 inches (274.3 x 243.2 cm)
Private collection
John Chamberlain
Funn
1978
painted and chromium-plated steel
80 x 41 x 21 inches (203.2 x 104.1 x 53.3 cm)
Private collection
Jean-Michel Basquiat
The Ring
1981
oil and oil stick on canvas
60 x 48 inches (152.4 x 121.9 cm)
Private collection
Cady Noland
Bluewald
1989
screenprint on aluminum with printed cotton flag
72 x 33 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches (182.9 x 85.1 x 90.2 cm)
Courtesy The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT
Glenn Ligon
Deferred (Malcolm / Martin)
1991
oil and acrylic on canvas
31 x 20 3/4 inches (78.7 x 52.7 cm)
Courtesy The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT
Christopher Wool
Untitled
1993
enamel on aluminum
43 x 30 inches (109.2 x 76.2 cm)
Courtesy The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Red Butterfly Over Lime Green)
2002
oil on linen
50 x 19 inches (127 x 48.3 cm)
Private collection
Jeff Koons
Lobster
2003
polychromed aluminum, coated steel chain
57 7/8 x 37 x 17 1/8 inches (147 x 94 x 43.5 cm)
Collection of the artist
Cy Twombly
Untitled
2006
acrylic on canvas
84 5/8 x 66 1/8 inches (214.9 x 168 cm)
Private collection
Mnuchin Gallery’s eponymous new exhibition examines the color of red as a visual, thematic, and symbolic instrument from the postwar era onward, offering a focused and commanding showcase of fiery masterpieces by some of the world’s most respected visionaries.
Seeing Reds: Robert Mnuchin got the idea for a show of Modern masterpieces around the theme of the color red while watching John Logan’s play about Mark Rothko and the painting of the Seagram’s murals that now reside in the Tate in London. The show includes a stunning red Rothko along with interesting and rarely seen museum properties by Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Ad Reinhardt Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, Glenn Ligon, Wade Guyton, Alexander Calder, John Chamberlain, Cady Noland and Kazuo Shiraga.
The color red and all its complicated connotations are the subject of a startling group exhibition at the Mnuchin Gallery. The New York gallery is hosting “REDS,” a expose on the color red’s role in art, featuring works by the likes of Josef Albers, Jeff Koons and more. The exhibition will be on view until June 9, 2018.