Levy Gorvy – förlag

Local History brings together rarely seen works from the 1950s through the early 1970s by Enrico Castellani, Donald Judd and Frank Stella, juxtaposing these with later examples that reveal each artist’s distinct evolution and the various reverberations of their brief aesthetic collision in the 1960s.

Multum in Parvo highlights the complex relationship between scale and size in the oeuvre of Alexander Calder (1898–1976) over a period of more than 30 years.As its title--translating to “much in little”--implies, the volume features over 40 rare small-scale sculptures, ranging from the size of a thumb to 30 inches tall, all of which feature the same physical qualities as Calder’s largest mobiles in the most miniature of detail.In addition to archival material, installation photography of the sculptures in the environment designed for them by architects Santiago and Gabriel Calatrava, and original architectural sketches, the book also includes commissioned essays by Jed Perl, art historian and author currently at work on the first full-length biography of Alexander Calder, and Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic, as well as poems by Karl Shapiro and John Updike.

Sotto Voce maps the historical progression of the abstract white relief from the 1930s to the 1970s. It includes works by Jean Arp, Ben Nicholson, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Sergio Camargo, Enrico Castellani, Henri Laurens, Fausto Melotti, Günther Uecker, Luis Tomasello and Mira Schendel.

Audible Presence explores the time-based procedures employed by three influential 20th-century artists: Italian Lucio Fontana, French Yves Klein and American Cy Twombly. With historical texts, photographs and ephemera, it relates their work to music, sound and silence.

Situational Diagram is a collection of essays and creative propositions by cultural theorists, philosophers, artists and activists. Contributors include Sabu Kohso, Aliza Shvarts, Jaleh Mansoor, Jean-Luc Nancy, Simon O’Sullivan, Anne Querrien, Abrahão de Oliveira Santos, Valentin Schaepelynck, Karin Schneider and Tirdad Zolghadr.

Günther Uecker (born 1930) has dealt with themes of struggle and vulnerability throughout his career. This artist’s book, published in conjunction with Dominique Lévy's exhibition Verletzte Felder (Wounded Fields), documents the artist’s creation of six large-scale works, with a handwritten text by the artist, studio images and detailed documentation.

This volume gathers poems by Edmund Berrigan, Peter Cole, Brenda Coultas, Erica Hunt, Vincent Katz, Amy King, Ange Mlinko, Anne Tardos, Anne Waldman and Karen Weiser, among others.

Since 1967, renowned artists Gilbert & George (born 1943 and 1942) have made themselves into their art, sacrificing their individual identities to devote themselves to a more democratic art practice, which they call “Art for All.” This catalog presents their formative early work, The General Jungle or Carrying on Sculpting (1971). Comprised of 23 monumental, multi-panel charcoal-on-paper sculptures depicting the artists wandering streets and parks in London and inscribed with philosophical slogans, The General Jungle or Carrying on Sculpting was first exhibited at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York in 1971. Published in conjunction with Lévy Gorvy’s exhibition of the work, this fully illustrated catalog features a newly commissioned essay by Michael Bracewell based on a recent interview with the artists, an original poem by Kostas Anagnopoulos, newspaper reviews from the Sonnabend exhibition and a facsimile of the postal sculpture A Day in the Life of George & Gilbert, the Sculptors (1971).

Focusing on the recent portraiture of Nouveaux Réaliste protagonist Martial Raysse (born 1936), this volume includes an essay by art historian and curator Jane Livingston, a poem by Leopoldine Core, plus three texts by the artist and an illustrated chronology.

This fully illustrated catalog accompanies the first exhibition curated by Brett Gorvy for the Lévy Gorvy gallery in New York. The exhibition features nearly one hundred artworks by twenty-seven artists, including Lee Bontecou, Bruce Conner, Joseph Cornell, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, Robert Ryman, Cy Twombly and Hannah Wilke. Documenting masterpieces that are rarely on public display, the publication offers a unique perspective on viewership and collecting. An essay by Suzanne Hudson examines works by Johns, Ryman and Twombly, while Sarah K. Rich considers the use of hallucinogens to break down boundaries within the self. A new translation of an excerpt from Henri Michaux’s Infinite Turbulence offers a window into the mind of an artist on mescaline. Miranda Mellis’ work of short fiction “The Emissaries” conjures a dystopian narrative that beautifully responds to works by Bellmer, Conner, Dubuffet and Rama, and Pablo Neruda’s poem “Ode to Things” accompanies reproductions of works by Cornell.

Painting provides an overview of Roman Opalka’s (1931–2011) career, spanning more than five decades. In 1965, Opalka began a project that would occupy the entirity of his career, titled 1965/1—[Infinity]. Each painting comprises rows of tiny numbers that progress sequentially from one canvas to the next.

In 1966, German artist Gerhard Richter (born 1932) embarked on a series of paintings: uniform grids of colored rectangles or squares in a chart configuration against a white background, inspired by industrially produced paint chips. With the exception of only one other painting, this marked the artist’s first use of color and a turning point in his career.This comprehensive catalogue is the first publication dedicated to the original Colour Charts, both those created in 1966 and those made in the ‘70s after a five-year hiatus. Featuring new essays by Dietmar Elger, head of the Gerhard Richter Archive; Hubertus Butin, curator and author of several key texts on Richter; and Jaleh Mansoor, professor at the University of British Columbia, whose research concentrates on modern abstraction and its socioeconomic implications, this is a handsome tribute to one of Richter’s most groundbreaking bodies of work.

Showcasing the paintings of influential Italian artist Enrico Castellani (born 1930), this publication presents his first solo exhibition in London. Castellani’s large-scale relief canvases are placed in dialogue with his more recent angular, metallic paintings.

Inspired by the 1976 exhibition Drawing Now at The Museum of Modern Art, Drawing Then investigates revolutionary developments in the practice of drawing that emerged in the United States during a decade of radical social and political upheaval.With more than 70 works by 39 artists--almost half of whom were not represented in the 1976 exhibition--Drawing Then includes works by Josef Albers, Mel Bochner, Chuck Close, Dan Flavin, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg and Ed Ruscha, among other greats.The volume also includes newly commissioned work by poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge in addition to rare archival material, artists’ biographies and a comprehensive chronology linking developments in the art world with the larger social and political events of the decade.

This book explores parallels in thought and strategies between Italian Conceptualist Giulio Paolini’s (born 1940) work, especially of the 1960s and the ‘70s, and the work of a younger generation of artists based in New York City today: Sebastian Black, Kerstin Brätsch (with Boško Blagojevic), Seth Price and Antek Walczak.

New York–based artist Joel Shapiro (born 1941) has explored the possibilities of sculptural form, as well as the interplay of color and mass, throughout his 45-year career. This catalog brings together Shapiro’s early wood reliefs, created between 1978 and 1980, with his recent site-specific installation practice, exploring the ways in which both bodies of work create expansive, joyful moments of discovery and play.Published in conjunction with Dominique Lévy’s exhibition of the artist’s work, Joel Shapiro features the first full catalog of the wood reliefs, as well as new texts by Phyllida Barlow, David Raskin, and Olivier Renaud-Clément, poems by Peter Cole and Ange Mlinko, and a comprehensive chronology written in collaboration with the artist’s studio.

At once emphatically abstract and culturally specific, the work of Seung-taek Lee (born 1932) draws on the subtle beauty of Korean aesthetic traditions and folk art, also reflecting contemporaneous developments in earth art, Mono-ha and postminimalism—while maintaining resolute independence from its peer groups.Lee's oeuvre spans painting, drawing, sculpture, installation and performance, often within the same piece. Notions of negation—which he alternately refers to as “dematerialization,” “anti-concept,” and “non-sculpture”—structure his approach, by which he transforms ordinary objects, imbuing them with multiple meanings and affects. Embracing invisible forces and unorthodox materials such as tree branches, wire, stones, human hair, fabric and rope, his art elevates the mundane to the level of myth. This is the first English-language overview of his work.

As a self-taught artist who confidently forged her own path, Carol Rama (1918–2015) pursued an inventive approach to structure and composition, seasoning her art with unconventional mediums, industrial material, provocative imagery and psychologically charged legends. Accompanying an exhibition at the Archivio Carol Rama at the Palazzo Ca’ nova in Venice, this publication includes full-color illustrations of Rama’s works featured in the show—an unprecedented selection representing the broad range of materials and styles that comprise her iconoclastic oeuvre. The catalog also features newly commissioned texts by curator and founder of Participant, Inc. Lia Gangitano and Turin-based novelist Andrea Bajani, as well as an introduction by Maria Cristina Mundici and Raffaella Roddolo of the Archivio Carol Rama.

Marking Lévy Gorvy’s first solo exhibition with acclaimed conceptual artist and philosopher Adrian Piper (born 1948), this focused presentation includes examples from The Mythic Being series (1973–75), It’s Just Art (1980) and Here, an installation work conceived in 2008 and realized for the first time at the gallery. Together, these three bodies of work delve into interrelated themes Piper has explored throughout her career—the intersubjective formation of self, identity, race and gender; racism, sexism, xenophobia and competing conceptions of political responsibility. The book includes an essay by Begum Yasar and Aliza Shvarts, “Alienation, Too, Has Its Uses,” which thinks through Piper’s writings and works to discuss contemporary manifestations of xenophobia and racism. Also included are a biography of the artist and color plates of the works.

The work of American sculptor and musician Terry Adkins (1953–2014) often started with a theme or idea, illuminated by sculptural components that sometimes housed a performative element. The performative and sculptural aspects of his practice evolved in tandem, and utilized materials that had likely served another purpose, be they instruments, materials from his printmaking experiences or locally sourced items.This catalog accompanies Lévy Gorvy's first solo exhibition of Adkins' works, exploring the materiality of his sculptures. The exhibition was curated by Charles Gaines, a celebrated artist and longtime friend and collaborator of Adkins', who contributes an essay to this publication that explores the experience of viewing Adkins' sculptures. Also included are an essay by Michael Brenson and newly commissioned poetry by Robin Coste Lewis.

United in their desire to create images "absolutely of the moment," Polke, Lichtenstein and Laing—three artists on separate but interrelated artistic journeys—turned their attention in the early 1960s toward the Ben-Day dot. Featuring works inspired by this printing method, Source and Stimulus connects these artists on this basis.

This fully illustrated volume features three bodies of work, Mailorder, Mother and Purgatory, which were included in Lévy Gorvy’s first exhibition with Dan Colen (born 1979). The volume includes an essay by Andrianna Campbell placing Colen within the historical tradition of painting, and a conversation between Colen and Jeff Koons, moderated and edited by Douglas Fogle.

Accompanying Levy Gorvy's exhibition Calder / Kelly, this catalog reveals the artists' friendship and their shared pursuit of abstraction. A timeline authored by Veronica Roberts traces the history of their relationship with previously unpublished letters between the artists and members of their shared circle of friends. In addition, Calder biographer Jed Perl examines resonances between the artists in his essay Apollonian Affinities, and philosopher Robert Hopkins discusses the similarities and differences in their approaches to abstraction. Newly commissioned poetry by Dan Chiasson, Forrest Gander and Simon Perchik beautifully responds to works in the exhibition.

Turin landscape from an overlooked master of painting, whose bestselling books are long out of printAccompanying Lévy Gorvy’s exhibition of the same name, this beautifully produced catalog highlights the celebrated Italian painter Carol Rama’s (1918–2015) engagement with the artistic landscape of her home city of Turin.Alongside color plates, an essay by Robert Storr explores Rama’s examination of conventionally obscured and shamed parts of human bodies, and shows how she diverged from the oppressive social order of her time. Curator Flavia Frigeri places Rama within the artistic landscape of the city in her essay, and a text by the writer Robert Lumley explores Rama’s engagement with the political scene in Turin.An illustrated chronology of Rama and the city highlights exhibitions of artists whose catalogs Rama collected in her home library, and newly commissioned poetry by Sylvia Gorelick and Lara Mimosa Montes responds to Rama and her oeuvre.

Iconic nail paintings and watercolors from Günther Uecker, famed for his participation in Group ZEROFeaturing both the nail paintings for which Günther Uecker (born 1930) is best known, plus watercolors made during his many travels, Notations provides an unusual dual-take on the German sculptor, op artist and installation artist. Made in collaboration with Uecker, the publication includes poems that Uecker wrote during his journeys, and excerpts from a day-long conversation and studio visit with Uecker by Hans Ulrich Obrist.To create his signature nail paintings, Uecker works a mixture of white paint and carpenter’s glue into a dense, visceral surface, then hammers nails into the panels, varying their placement and groupings intuitively to form undulating painted reliefs that cast shadows in constant motion.Uecker’s watercolors reveal a wholly different aspect of the artist’s oeuvre. These watercolors are made spontaneously on the road, during travels across Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Israel, Japan, the United States and Vietnam.

An opulent appreciation of Warhol’s complex relationship to women and femininityDedicated to Andy Warhol's (1928–87) portraits of women from the early 1960s through the 1980s, and featuring five trifolds and a tipped-on cover, Warhol Women explores the artist's female subjects and his complex relationship to myths and ideals of femininity, beauty and power.Here, Blake Gopnik discusses the women essential to Warhol during his emergence as an artist, while Lynne Tillman examines his relationship with his mother. Brett Gorvy's interview with Corice Arman relays her experience sitting for two portraits by Warhol, and John Giorno (the subject of Warhol's film Sleep) contributes the poem "La saggezza delle streghe/Wisdom of the Witches." Alison M. Gingeras writes on women that played vital roles throughout his career, from Ethel Scull and Edie Sedgwick to Brigid Berlin, Pat Hackett and others.Also included are source images and Polaroids of the women in Warhol's portraits.

Featuring a printed Plexiglas cover, this gorgeous volume celebrates the 100th birthday of “the painter of black”This fully illustrated volume reproduces works by French painter Pierre Soulages (born 1919) from the 1950s to the present, illustrating his enduring role in the dialogue between European and American painting and inviting viewers to consider an oeuvre that has injected profound poetry into abstraction through its adherence to a single material: black paint.With a Plexiglas cover in honor of Soulages’ stained-glass windows at the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy in Conques, the book is published in both English and Chinese. An essay by Alfred Pacquement, who also cocurated the Louvre’s 2019 Soulages exhibition, reflects on the critical reception of Soulages’ work internationally. An essay by Brooks Adams charts Soulages’ engagement with architecture throughout his career. Poetry by Sy Hoahwah and Virginie Poitrasson responds to Soulages’ life story and his work, while a chronology of the artist’s life includes numerous excerpts from Soulages’ writings appearing here for the first time in English.

A leading figure of the Korean avant-garde Dansaekhwa group in dialogue with European abstractionChung Sang-Hwa (born 1932) is a central figure of Dansaekhwa (also known as Tansaekhwa), an artistic movement in postwar Korea that offered a fundamentally different approach to modernist abstraction. Though the term translates literally to “monochrome painting,” Dansaekhwa is rather characterized by its labor-intensive processes, repetitive gestures and reductionist aesthetics.Over his nearly six-decades-long career, Chung has developed a singular, meditative process of repetitively applying and removing paint from his canvases, resulting in multilayered, tactile monochromatic surfaces. Chung Sang-Hwa: Excavations, 1964-78 highlights a critical period in the artist’s career in which he was immersed in the international avant-garde movements of both Asia and Europe. This fully illustrated volume includes an essay by critic Barry Schwabsky, a translated excerpt from the writings of Shin Young-Bok by Harvard professor David McCann, and an interview with Chung Sang-Hwa by Bona Yoo.