Pace Gallery – serie

Commemorating the photography giant’s centennial, with a new text by the famed poet and writer Ocean VuongWidely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of his medium, Robert Frank broke new ground with his candid, poignant images of American life in the mid-20th century. Published on the occasion of the exhibition at Pace in New York, and in celebration of the centennial of Frank’s birth, Robert Frank: Hope Makes Visions presents an in-depth look at the photographer and filmmaker’s process across various media. Through a selection of his lesser-known photographs, collages, sketches and maquettes from 1955 to 2016, a new portrait of the artist emerges, one that shows his commitment to growth and experimentation throughout his career. With a new text by Ocean Vuong, author of the award-winning On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019), this volume is a sensitive homage to a canonical artist.Robert Frank was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1924. He spent most of his adult life living between New York City and Nova Scotia, Canada, where he died in 2019. Frank was a photographer and filmmaker best known for his groundbreaking monograph The Americans (1958). Over his decades-long career, Frank captured the complexities of contemporary life with a distinct style and poetic insight.

In intense monochromatic hues of black and gray, Quin’s paintings examine the mutability of language and symbolLos Angeles–based artist Lauren Quin (born 1992) approaches the act of painting as a process of ongoing inquiry. Composed from dynamic, intensely chromatic forms, her paintings challenge our understanding of abstraction. Eyelets of Alkaline focuses on Quin’s latest body of work, which represents a turn from an “overdose” of chromatic intensity toward what she describes as a “detox of color” in a palette of tonal blacks and grays. Alongside vivid illustrations and foldout pages, the publication also includes a new text by the poet, playwright and essayist Ariana Reines, described as “one of the crucial voices of her generation” by Michael Silverblatt on NPR’s Bookworm.

"Meppayil’s is an artisanal practice executed in a contemporary South Asian context, in dialogue with Western modernism from the 1950s and ’60s" –FriezeIndian artist Prabhavathi Meppayil (born 1965) makes wall-mounted panels and sculptural installations containing subtle gestures that heighten the inherent qualities of her materials and tools. The artist's integration of craft-based labor and process-based art positions her work in unique dialogue with a complex history of material and artistic production, invoking artisanal legacies, affinities with Indian culture, and Minimalist and Postminimalist concepts. This book explores the past six years of Meppayil's output and echoes the subtle qualities of her work through its considered typography and design. Semitransparent and colored pages are inserted between sections to define the different exhibitions but also as another layer of materiality and counterpoise to the works. The layout of the inside pages balances the works and texts within a modernist grid, using the proportions of the page to create harmony and breathing room around the works.

A surreal investigation of domestic neuroses by the installation virtuosos Elmgreen & DragsetPublished alongside the artists’ first major solo exhibition with Pace, this catalog highlights new and recent work by Elmgreen & Dragset (born 1961 and 1969, respectively). World renowned for their installation Prada Marfa (2005), the Berlin-based duo have been working at the crossroads of art and architecture, performance and installation since 1995. The book also includes an essay by the writer Martin Herbert, an interview with the duo by the art historian Richard Shiff and images of the immersive presentation The Nervous System, a surreal depiction of a dysfunctional home constructed within the Pace’s walls. The domestic scene on display consists of 12 pieces, 10 of which are new. Featuring various sculptural elements that congeal into a complex set of associations, the exhibition encourages viewers to form their own interpretations. In this presentation, Elmgreen & Dragset have inverted the experience of reading a novel, providing images but requiring viewers to construct the story.

Justice and rebirth: a visual chronicle of the artist who fused Afro-Cuban visual culture with European modernismThis chronological survey traces the Cuban painter and sculptor Wifredo Lam’s (1902–82) career from the late 1930s to the ’70s, spotlighting the radically syncretic visual language he developed in response to modernism’s Eurocentricity. Born to a Chinese father and Congolese Iberian mother, Lam placed heritage centrally in his work. Early in his career, he associated with major figures such as Picasso, Matisse and Braque, and he was struck by their integration of African iconography. Although he greatly respected these European artists, the dissonance between their aesthetic choices and cultural experience was not lost on him—especially given the racism and exploitation that characterized Cuban society under the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Lam spent the rest of his career endeavoring to decolonize modernist art. From his early Surrealist works to his later preference for geometric abstraction, African sculpture and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora consistently informed his practice. Published for an exhibition at Pace, The Imagination at Work includes paintings, works on paper and rarely seen bronze sculptures, as well as a biography of Lam’s life and career by the Latin American art scholar and curator Michaëla de Lacaze Mohrmann, who made curatorial contributions to the gallery’s exhibition. Essays by scholars Alexander Alberro, Kaira Cabañas, Samantha A. Noël and Alexandra Chang also feature.

Nava’s playful update of history painting forges “new myths” for our timesThis is the first monograph on New York–based artist Robert Nava (born 1985), who paints using a raw, energetic mixing of spray paint, acrylics and grease pencil. Nava’s paintings of fantastical, hybrid beasts, angels and monsters exude a playful candidness that invites viewers to reconnect with the unbridled imagination of their childhoods. Nava’s strongly contemporary aesthetic is deeply rooted in art history and the tradition of monumental history painting.Focusing on Nava's first exhibition in London, this fully illustrated book includes his new series of large-scale battle scene paintings featuring a chimerical world of metamorphic creatures, drawing inspiration from sources as disparate as prehistoric cave paintings, Egyptian art and cartoons. A text by art historian Jason Rosenfeld and an interview with renowned sculptor Huma Bhabha also feature. With photographs of Nava's sketchbooks and the artist working in his studio, this book is a personal and comprehensive view of his work and process.

Lush and psychedelic digital depictions of flowersSince the early 1960s, multimedia artist Lucas Samaras (born 1936) has worked across mediums to advance a Surrealist idiom that departs from the trappings of Abstract Expressionism and Pop art. Over the decades, his interest in self-representation and object transformation has expanded to include experimentations in photography and—beginning in 1996, when he obtained his first computer—digital art. This volume, conceived and published by Pace Gallery, narrows the scope of Samaras’ oeuvre to focus on his psychedelic digital distortions of flowers. It comprises 110 color images featuring flora of all kinds: in gardens, along sidewalks, in landfills or superimposed onto kaleidoscopic abstract backgrounds. Taken together, these augmented images form an intriguing part of Samaras’ recent work.

A facsimile edition of one of Thek’s composition notebooks from 1977, replete with vivid watercolors, sketches and notesAmerican artist Paul Thek, an influential figure in the post-1960s generation, left behind more than 100 notebooks containing drawings and watercolors, diary entries, poetry, correspondences, ideas for artworks and elaborate transcriptions of texts by philosophers or theologians. Considered by Thek to be artworks unto themselves, his notebooks provide unparalleled insight into his imagination, which he translated into sculpture, painting and installation. This facsimile edition of one of Thek’s composition notebooks from 1977 provides an up-close experience of this intimate facet of his practice, with vivid watercolors, lists, scribbles, notes and sketches revealing glimmers of the inner life of a legendary artist. Within the notebook, Thek endeavors, continuously, to work out his mind, dispelling humorous and resonant self-directives, such as “Avoid anyone who seeks to be a MASTER.” A few pages later, in reference to another declarative, he cautions, “This is not necessarily true; avoid definitions.”Creating eclectic paintings, sculptures, video and performance works, Paul Thek (1933–88) defied neat categorization or a signature style. He is best known for his 1960s “meat pieces,” later referred to as his Technological Reliquaries series, consisting of hyperrealistic wax sculptures depicting hunks of flesh—both human and otherwise. Thek is also credited as one of the first artists to create elaborate, ephemeral environments or installations composed of perishable materials such as sand, candles and newspaper. He died in New York from AIDS-related complications.

Drawing on disciplines from neuroscience to zoology, Cooke's linear compositions evoke an organic fluidity reminiscent of synapses, physical processes or prehuman states Since the late 1990s, British artist Nigel Cooke (born 1973) has explored and stretched the boundaries of figurative painting, creating a highly diverse and distinctive body of work. This monograph focuses on Cooke's recent output of abstract, calligraphic images, which display a delicate balance of emotive color and form.