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    See Artist Gregor Gleiwitz’s New Paintings That Abstract Nature to Expressive Effect

    A new series of large-scale abstract paintings by Gregor Gleiwitz at Setareh gallery in Düsseldorf are inspired by the natural world, which may not seem obvious at first glance. The works are filled with whirling organic forms, but these contain a frenetic expressivity and vibrant palette that feels entirely hyperreal. Rather than reflecting the world back at us, Gleiwitz has succeeded in capturing the unpredictable, all-enveloping tenor of our emotional responses to it.
    Born in Poland in 1977, Gleiwitz currently lives and works in Berlin. He recalled venturing out for long walks in the fields near his studio to make watercolor studies en plein air, which left him inspired by how the sun’s rays bring lightness and, with it, meaning to our lives. “The canvas is the light space in which the experienced world takes on a new form as a result of the stream of consciousness,” he said.
    Gregor Gleiwitz in his studio. Photo courtesy of the artist.
    Each painting is an impression that belongs to a particular day, which is why Gleiwitz gives as each work’s title its date of completion. “Seeing is wandering, landscape is figure, and the picture is a portrait,” he said. “Searching anew every day, following the sun inside and out.”
    By layering glossy paint that Gleiwitz then freely scrapes, smears, and swirls across the canvas with a palette knife, he is able to achieve a pleasingly lyrical effect that is alternately enlivening and lulling. In this way, he foregrounds how our experiences of the external world are always mediated by our senses. This offers an interesting twist on the return to the pleasures of whimsical, floral art in contemporary art, which has felt very of the zeitgeist in recent months.
    “Within a German painting tradition which has grown out of the accomplishments of masters from Gerhard Richter through Albert Oehlen, Gregor Gleiwitz has developed a distinct oeuvre of near abstraction,” said Lee Plested, director of the gallery. “Incorporating the mystical dimensions of the expressive, Gleiwitz is able to push beyond the literal image to realize planes of encounter which resonate in multiple dimensions and temporalities while maintaining the underlying presence of their physical origins.”
    “Sun Script” is on view at Setareh gallery in Düsseldorf and online through January 20. Check out more paintings from the show below. His work will also be included in “Nature Studies,” a forthcoming two person exhibition with Miron Schmückle at the gallery’s Berlin location from February 8 until Mary 9, 2024.
    Gregor Gleiwitz, 08.10.2023 (2023). Image courtesy of Setareh Gallery, Berlin.
    Gregor Gleiwitz, 06.09.2023 (2023). Image courtesy of Setareh Gallery, Berlin.
    Gregor Gleiwitz, 17.08.2023 (2023). Image courtesy of Setareh Gallery, Berlin.
    Gregor Gleiwitz, 25.07.2023 (2023). Image courtesy of Setareh Gallery, Berlin.
    Gregor Gleiwitz, 16.05.2023 (2023). Image courtesy of Setareh Gallery, Berlin.

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    A Trove of Satirical Magazines, Made by a Legal Clerk in Hiding During WWII, Will Go on View in Berlin

    In the two years that Curt Bloch spent hiding from the Nazis in the attic of a house in the Netherlands, he launched a weekly satirical magazine filled with photomontages and poems about his own experiences, as well as wider political developments in the outside world. All 95 issues of Het Onderwater Cabaret (The Underwater Cabaret) will be the subject of a free exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin from February 9 through May 26, 2024.
    The Dutch term onderwater translates to underwater, but is also often used to mean that someone has gone into hiding. The handmade publication took aim at the Nazis, in particular Joseph Goebbels. In one poem about the notorious propagandist, he advised: “If he writes straight, read it crooked. If he writes crooked, read it straight.”
    Curt Bloch. Photo: Jewish Museum Berlin, gift of Lide Schattenkerk.
    “The overwhelming majority of writings that were created in hiding were destroyed,” the exhibition’s curator Aubrey Pomerance told the New York Times. “If they weren’t, they’ve come to the public attention before now. So, it’s tremendously exciting.”
    Born in the western German city of Dortmund in 1908, Bloch’s was working as a legal clerk before his life changed forever at the age of 24. A sharp rise in antisemitism after Hitler came to power in 1933 forced Bloch to flee across the northern border into the Netherlands. In 1940, the Nazis invaded and Bloch moved to the small city of Enschede near the German border.
    Curt Bloch, Het Onderwater Cabaret, Magazine cover from 16.09.1945. Het Onderwater Cabaret 30 Aug 1943; Jewish Museum Berlin, Convolute/816, Curt Bloch collection, loaned by the Charities Aid Foundation America thanks to the generous support of Curt Blochʼs family.
    Bloch would escape deportation thanks to the heroic efforts of Leendert Overduin, a pastor for the Dutch Reformed Church who set up Group Overduin to help at least 1,000 Jewish people hide from the Nazis. In April 1943, the organization installed Bloch in the home of a couple, Bertus and Aleida Menneken, and he shared their tiny attic with another German-Jewish couple, Bruno Löwenberg and Karola Wolf. Group Overduin would continue to protect Bloch and his companions, supplying them with food and, unusually, the printed materials, glue, pens, and paper necessary to run his publication.
    Curt Bloch, Het Onderwater Cabaret, Magazine cover from 30.08.1945. Het Onderwater Cabaret 30 Aug 1943; Jewish Museum Berlin, Convolute/816, Curt Bloch collection, loaned by the Charities Aid Foundation America thanks to the generous support of Curt Blochʼs family.
    Though Bloch made one copy of each issue of Het Onderwater Cabaret, these were small enough to slip into a pocket and were passed around, possibly to other members of Group Overduin. Luckily, all 95 booklets were eventually returned and Bloch was able to take them home after the liberation in 1945. He soon met fellow Holocaust survivor Ruth Kan, and the couple emigrated to New York where they set up a business selling European antiques.
    Curt Bloch, Het Onderwater Cabaret, Magazine cover from 18.12.1945. Het Onderwater Cabaret 30 Aug 1943; Jewish Museum Berlin, Convolute/816, Curt Bloch collection, loaned by the Charities Aid Foundation America thanks to the generous support of Curt Blochʼs family.
    Meanwhile, the magazines remained family heirlooms collecting dust on a shelf until Bloch’s granddaughter Lucy decided to make them the subject of her own research. Her efforts to promote the magazine would lead to the forthcoming exhibition, “‘My Verses Are Like Dynamite’: Curt Bloch’s Het Onderwater Cabaret,” in Berlin and an accompanying book The Underwater Cabaret: The Satirical Resistance of Curt Bloch by Gerard Groeneveld. German, Dutch and English versions of Bloch’s poems will also be made available online on a dedicated website launched by Bloch’s daughter Simone Bloch.

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    Drawings Newly Attributed to Sandro Botticelli Get the Spotlight in San Francisco

    The great Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli is best known for painted works such as Primavera (c. 1477–82) and The Birth of Venus (c. 1485–86), which hang in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, but a new show at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor, one of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, celebrates the artist’s drawings. “Botticelli: Rhythm of the Line” is the first-ever exhibition dedicated to his works in the medium.
    The exhibition includes more than 60 artworks from 42 institutions, with 27 drawings on display. They come from institutions like the Uffizi as well as Paris’s Louvre Museum and the National Gallery in London. Many of these works rarely travel, and they temporarily turn the Bay Area into a remarkable showcase for the Renaissance master’s output.
    Botticelli—born Alessandro Filipepi in 1445—ran his own large workshop in Florence after studying under the master Fra Filippo Lippi from around the age of 15. After his training, Botticelli developed a style which harked back to the artistic ideals of classical antiquity, and he is known for his individualized portraits. His group portraits often included real contemporary figures and self-portraits, the most famous of which can be seen in his The Adoration of the Magi (c. 1475).
    In a short documentary produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Furio Rinaldi, the exhibition’s curator, explains the appeal of drawings as a route to a more intimate understanding of the Old Masters: “Most of these Old Masters are perceived as very remote and unapproachable, but through their drawings we can have a much more direct and fresh understanding on how they were thinking, how they were designing, how they were articulating their memorable compositions.”
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    The exhibition examines the role preparatory drawing played in Botticelli’s practice, and pairs completed works with the initial drawings for them. His world-renowned Adoration of the Magi hangs alongside fragments of preparatory drawings on linen.
    The exhibition also features works recently attributed to the Italian Renaissance master. These include preparatory drawings for The Cestello Annunciation (1489), from the Uffizi Gallery; Adoration of the Magi from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist (c. 1468–70), from the Louvre Museum. The Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist is hung next to the newly attributed drawing.
    Rinaldi has said that the new attributions “will help lay the groundwork for a fuller understanding of Botticelli’s artistic output and the field of Italian Renaissance art at large.”
    “Botticelli: Rhythm of the Line” is on view at the Legion of Honor, 100 34th Avenue, San Francisco, through February 11, 2024. See more works from the show below.
    Sandro Botticelli, La Bella Simonetta (ca. 1485). Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum.
    Installation view of “Botticelli: Rhythm of the Line” at Legion of Honor, San Francisco. Photo by Gary Sexton, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
    Installation view of “Botticelli: Rhythm of the Line” at Legion of Honor, San Francisco. Photo by Gary Sexton, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
    Sandro Botticelli, Fragment of Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1500). Photo courtesy of Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge / Art Resource, NY.
    Sandro Botticelli, The Devout Jews at Pentecost (ca. 1505). Photo by Wolfgang Fuhrmannek, courtesy of Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt.
    Sandro Botticelli, The Annunciation (ca. 1490–95). Courtesy Glasgow Museums.
    Sandro Botticelli, The Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist (Madonna of the Rose Garden) (ca. 1468). © RMN-Grand Palais. Photo Tony Querrec.
    Installation view of “Botticelli: Rhythm of the Line” at Legion of Honor, San Francisco. Photo by Drew Altizer, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

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    Witness the Power of Nicole Eisenman’s Observational Eye

    Nicole Eisenman’s first major retrospective in the U.K., at London’s Whitechapel Gallery, contains over 100 works spanning some 30 years, although its impressive scope feels even wider, stretching across the history of art. Take a painting like Coping (2008), which is filled with individual vignettes in a manner reminiscent of Breughel, or Fishing (2000), where the symmetrical composition and arrangement of figures calls to mind a High Renaissance altarpiece. Elsewhere, Sloppy Bar Room Kiss (2011) has the same painterly, expressionistic approach to everyday modern life that was popularized by artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
    The Brooklyn-based French-American painter and sculptor is adverse to giving interviews or offering any kind of oversimplifying explanations for these scenes, which can often be monumental in size and littered with references. What comes through clearly enough in the work, however, is her boldly biting yet always humorous critiques of contemporary socio-political issues including identity, war, economic downturn, and technology.
    Throughout the show are scenes that celebrate lesbian life and love in downtown bars, parks, pools and domestic settings, but even a moment of intimacy shared in a work like Morning Studio (2016) contains a darker undercurrent. Eisenman uses a prominent computer screen to draw attention to the ways in which the prevalence of technology interferes with our everyday lives. She may often quote the past, but Eisenman’s keen observational eye always pulls these references back into the present.
    Sculptural heads highly typical of Eisenman’s practice appear throughout the show, often appearing in large assortments of jumbled objects. Site-specific murals made by the artist between 1992 and 2003, but since destroyed, have also been revived for the first time thanks to a new animation film produced in collaboration with fellow artist Ryan McNamara.
    “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened” runs through January 14, 2024. Check out more works from the show below.
    Installation view of “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened” at Whitechapel Gallery in London closing January 14, 2024. Photo: Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery.
    Nicole Eisenman, Beer Garden with Ulrike and Celeste (2009). Photo: Bryan Conley, courtesy Hall Art Foundation.
    Installation view of “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened” at Whitechapel Gallery in London closing January 14, 2024. Photo: Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery.
    Nicole Eisenman, Sloppy Bar Room Kiss (2011). Photo: Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles.
    Installation view of “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened” at Whitechapel Gallery in London closing January 14, 2024. Photo: Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery.
    Nicole Eisenman, Econ Prof (2019). Photo courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
    Installation view of “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened” at Whitechapel Gallery in London closing January 14, 2024. Photo: Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery.
    Nicole Eisenmann, Morning Studio (2016). Photo courtesy the artist and Anton Kern Gallery, New York.
    Installation view of “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened” at Whitechapel Gallery in London closing January 14, 2024. Photo: Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery.
    Nicole Eisenman, Fishing (2000). Photo: Bryan Conley, courtesy Carnegie Museum of Art.
    Installation view of “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened” at Whitechapel Gallery in London closing January 14, 2024. Photo: Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery.
    Nicole Eisenman, Coping (2008). Photo courtesy Whitechapel Gallery.
    Installation view of “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened” at Whitechapel Gallery in London closing January 14, 2024. Photo: Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery.

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    Revered and Feared: The British Museum Explores 5,000 Years of Feminine Power

    Goddesses, saints, demons: ‘Revered and Feared. Feminine Power in Art and Belief’ is a collaborative exhibition created by Madrid’s ‘La Caixa’ Foundation and London’s British Museum, bringing together 166 historical objects to highlight spiritual perceptions of femininity around the globe.
    Objects on display date from prehistory through to the 21st century, and follow five themes: “Creation and Nature,” “Passion and Desire,” “Magic and Malice,” “Justice and Defence,” and “Compassion and Salvation.” Contemporary artists involved in the show include Marina Abramović and Zanele Muholi. The objects—which span over 5,000 years—call into question our beliefs about gender expression, examine women’s multifaceted roles in society and folklore, and celebrate ancient customs and traditions. 
    Its curators have called it “the first exhibition of its kind.”
    The show has been co-curated by Belinda Crerar, of the British Museum, and Risa Martínez, an independent curator and advisor for the selection of the contemporary artworks included in the show.
    In an interview for the Fundación “La Caixa”, Crerar explained that the exhibition explores “all the different ways that female identity has been framed throughout history and around the world” and that it is “particularly relevant today in light of recent gender equality movements, to be reflecting on our own cultural pre-conceptions when it comes to gender identity and female empowerment”.
    Highlights in the show include a bust of the Roman goddess Minerva, a Buddhist figure of Bodhisattva Guanyin, a Taraka dance mask from West Bengal, and a statuette of the river deity Oshun from the Yoruba culture of Nigeria.
    ‘Revered and Feared. Feminine Power in Art and Belief’ is on view at CaixaForum, Madrid, through January 14, 2024. Check out more works from the show below.
    Zanele Muholi, Somnyama IV, Oslo (2015). Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York.
    Painted Terracotta, Italy (c. 500 B.C.E.) © The Trustees of the British Museum (2023).
    Egyptian Amulet, (1069–664 BC) © The Trustees of the British Museum (2023).
    Queen of the Night, Iraq (c. 1750 B.C.E.) © The Trustees of the British Museum (2023).
    Workshop of Sri Kajal Datta, Dance Mask of Taraka (1994). © The Trustees of the British Museum (2023).
    White Tara, Tibet (1700–1900). © The Trustees of the British Museum (2023).
    Porcelain, China (c. 1700-22). © The Trustees of the British Museum (2023).
    Silver Medal of Queen Anne, UK (1707). © The Trustees of the British Museum (2023).
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    Anish Kapoor Bends the Boundaries of Truth in an Expansive Show at Palazzo Strozzi

    Renaissance architecture and Anish Kapoor’s iconic sculptures may seem to have little in common. But the team at Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy, sees an uncanny connection between the two and has decided to bring them together.
    The result is an expansive solo show titled “Untrue Unreal.” It features a vast range of works from across Kapoor’s oeuvre, including those monumental in scale. The show transforms the historic site into a space of contemplation, by inviting audiences to immerse themselves in a realm where the perception of truth becomes an illusion.
    “Kapoor has engaged in a direct dialogue with the Renaissance architecture. The result is entirely original, almost a kind of dialectical juxtaposition, where symmetry, harmony, and rigor are called into question, and the boundaries between material and immaterial dissolve,” Arturo Galansino, general director of the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation and curator of the exhibition, noted in a statement.
    “Amidst the rational geometries of Palazzo Strozzi, Kapoor invites us in this exhibition to lose and rediscover ourselves, prompting us to question what is untrue or unreal.”
    The exhibition shines a spotlight on the internationally acclaimed artist’s ongoing experimentation with materiality, space, form, and color, between the galleries at the Piano Nobile and the Renaissance courtyard. Among the highlights include To Reflect an Intimate Part of the Red (1981), a signature piece from the earlier stage of Kapoor’s career; Non-Object Black (2015), which challenges viewers’s perception through the use of Vantablack, a material that absorbs more than 99.9 percent of visible light; and Void Pavilion VII (2023), a newly architecturally scaled work conceived for the site’s Renaissance courtyard.
    Below are the images of the exhibition. “Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal” runs through February 4, 2024.
    Anish Kapoor, Svayambhu (2007). © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio
    Anish Kapoor, Svayambhu (2007). © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio
    Anish Kapoor, Void Pavilion VII (2023). © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio.
    Anish Kapoor, Angel (1990). © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio
    Installation view of “Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal”. © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio
    Installation view of “Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal”. © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio
    Installation view of “Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal”. © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio.
    Installation view of “Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal”. © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio.
    Installation view of “Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal”. © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio.
    Anish Kapoor, Gathering Clouds (2014)
    Installation view of “Anish Kapoor. Untrue Unreal”. © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio.
    Anish Kapoor, To Reflect an Intimate Part of the Red (1981)

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    Years After Receiving a Gift of J.E.H. MacDonald Sketches, a Vancouver Museum Learns They’re Fakes

    In January 2015, the Vancouver Art Gallery was gifted 10 painted sketches by James Edward Hervey MacDonald, a modern landscape artist and founding member of the renowned Group of Seven. Supposed studies for larger paintings, the works were deemed long lost and forgotten, with the museum’s curator Ian Thom hailing their rediscovery at that time as lending “considerable insight into the transformation of [the artist’s] style.”  
    Eight years on, the pieces have gone on view at the museum, but with one significant caveat—they’re no longer attributed to MacDonald.
    “J.E.H. MacDonald? A Tangled Garden” brings together the 10 paintings alongside the detailed findings that led the institution to reattribute them. It’s an effort, said Anthony Kiendl, CEO and executive director of the Vancouver Art Gallery, to unpack a “fascinating story” that has seen the undoing of a high-profile gift. 
    Unknown artist, Sketch after Falls, Montreal River. Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
    The paperboard sketches were a gift from Ephry and Melvin Merkur, who had inherited them from their father Max Merkur, a Toronto-based art collector. According to the museum, the works were buried by MacDonald and his son Thoreau in the backyard of the family’s property for safekeeping in 1931. These boxes were then excavated in 1974, whereupon they were snapped up by Merkur. 
    But in the wake of the donation, questions were raised, most prominently by the Globe and Mail, about the authenticity of the works. Among their doubts, experts pointed out the anachronistic paint types used in the works and more egregiously, misspellings in the artist’s signature. The cloud surrounding the paintings led the museum to shelf a planned exhibition, and recruit art historians, handwriting experts, and the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) to untangle the matter. 
    Unknown artist, Sketch after Leaves in the Brook. Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
    The CCI undertook scientific research and visual analysis of the paintings, supported by art history specialists who offered qualitative assessments. Their study found pigments that did not exist in MacDonald’s lifetime, as well as the use of boards that were unlike those the artist typically drew on. A handful of the purported sketches, too, were found to resemble the completed works in such a way that experts suggest they were created after, rather than for, the final compositions. 
    Based on these findings, the museum is now attributing the 10 pieces to an unknown artist. 
    “This investigation exemplifies how scientific examination can play an important role in the understanding and preservation of cultural heritage The CCI’s findings were crucial to the conclusive outcome of the investigation, which has led to the revised attribution of these 10 painted sketches,” said Kate Helwig, a conservation scientist at the CCI. 
    Unknown artist, Sketch after The Wild River. Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
    Still, “A Tangled Garden” will feature an installation of oil sketches by J.E.H. MacDonald, as well as those of his Group of Seven peers. Active from 1920 through ’33, the cadre of artists were celebrated for their modern, almost romantic, approach to landscape painting. Defying the staid formalism of 19th-century naturalism, they produced deeply energetic and expressive canvases, exemplified by Tom Thomson’s The West Wind (1916–17), Lawren Harris’s Lake and Mountains (1928), and MacDonald’s Falls, Montreal River (1920).  
    While the new attribution might be humbling, particularly following the highs of the 2015 rediscovery, the museum sees moving forward with an exhibition of faked works as critical to its mission. Kiendl, for one, touts the project as reflective of “our commitment to research, artistic inquiry, and sharing new knowledge with our communities.”
    “The gallery seeks to foster an environment of critical inquiry and transparency,” he added, “in which our audiences participate in the discourse surrounding the meaning of these artworks.” 
    “J.E.H. MacDonald? A Tangled Garden” is on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby St, Vancouver, Canada, through May 12, 2024. 

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    Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys Were Unlikely Pals. A New Show Delves Into Their Surprising Rapport

    A series of portraits of Joseph Beuys created by Andy Warhol during the 1980s are currently on view at London’s Thaddaeus Ropac, as part of an exhibition that delves into the relationship between the social sculptor and Pop legend.
    “Andy Warhol: The Joseph Beuys Portraits” marks the first time that the Beuys pictures are presented together for over 40 years. Made between 1980 and 1986, the series of screen prints feature Warhol’s characteristic use of scale and repetition, and variously bear vivid hues and others diamond dust—all of them recreations of a 1979 Polaroid photo he took of the German artist in his signature felt hat.
    The pair first officially met at an exhibition opening in Düsseldorf in 1979. Writer David Galloway described the moment as having “all the ceremonial aura of two rival popes meeting in Avignon.” Later that year, Beuys visited Warhol at his New York studio, the Factory, to be photographed—incidentally at the same time as the modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe.
    Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys, Lucio Amelio [Gallery], Naples (1980). © DACS, 2023; Photo: Tate.Although the pair were not close friends and pursued dramatically different approaches to their practices, they showed great respect for each other’s work. Pre-dating their meeting in Düsseldorf, Warhol had created a propaganda poster for Germany’s Green Party at the request of Beuys.
    “He himself is sort of [a] ghost; he has spirituality,” Beuys said of Warhol. “Maybe this tabular rasa that Andy Warhol does [in his portraits], this emptiness and cleansing of any traditional signature… is something that creates the possibility of allowing radically different perspectives to enter.”
    Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys (1980–83). © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Schellmann Art / DACS, London, 2023.
    The first exhibition of Warhol’s Beuys portraits took place at Galleria Lucio Amelio in Naples in 1980, the opening of which saw both artists in attendance. Later exhibitions of the images happened in Munich and Geneva; today, the portraits are held in major collections including that of London’s Tate Museum and New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
    The show at Thaddaeus Ropac will also include trial proofs and other rare works on paper by Warhol. It is, in a way, a full-circle moment for Ropac: in the 1980s, the Austrian gallerist served as an intern for Beuys, who he described to the Guardian as possessing “incredible charisma.”
    Ropac also highlighted how Warhol’s Beuys elaborate series stood out at a time when the Pop artist had taken to churning out one-off portrait commissions. That he had opted to develop and experiment with variations of the Beuys image—as a line drawing, a diamond-dusted canvas, a two-toned silkscreen—is proof of how the image captured his eye.
    “When you see the same face in all these variations, you realize there is an incredible connection,” Ropac added. “He caught the face, but also a state of mind.”
    See more images from the show below.
    Installation view of “Andy Warhol: The Joseph Beuys Portraits” at Thaddaeus Ropac London. Photo: Aggie Cherrie. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. /DACS, London, 2023. Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac gallery.Thaddaeus Ropac gallery.
    Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys (1980–83). © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Schellmann Art / DACS, London, 2023.
    Installation view of “Andy Warhol: The Joseph Beuys Portraits” at Thaddaeus Ropac London. Photo: Aggie Cherrie. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. /DACS, London, 2023. Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac gallery.
    Installation view of “Andy Warhol: The Joseph Beuys Portraits” at Thaddaeus Ropac London. Photo: Aggie Cherrie. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. /DACS, London, 2023. Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac gallery.
    Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys (1980–83). © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Schellmann Art / DACS, London, 2023.
    Installation view of “Andy Warhol: The Joseph Beuys Portraits” at Thaddaeus Ropac London. Photo: Aggie Cherrie. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. /DACS, London, 2023. Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac gallery.
    “Andy Warhol: The Joseph Beuys Portraits” is on view at Thaddaeus Ropac, Ely House, 37 Dover Street, London, through February 9, 2024. 

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