Victoria Miro is delighted to participate in Frieze New York (booth A5) with masterworks by Yayoi Kusama, Alice Neel and Paula Rego, new paintings and works on paper created especially for this presentation by María Berrío, Doron Langberg, Celia Paul and Flora Yukhnovich, a significant recent photographic work by Stan Douglas and a major recent sculpture by Sarah Sze.
Among the foremost American painters of the twentieth century, Alice Neel’s reputation has only ascended further during the acclaimed touring survey Alice Neel: People Come First (currently at the de Young Museum, San Francisco until 10 July 2022). On view is an important double portrait, Linus and Ava Helen Pauling, 1969, which depicts the great scientist and activist Linus Pauling, who won the Nobel Prize twice (in 1954 for chemistry and in 1962 for peace activism) and his wife, the celebrated human rights activist Ava Helen Pauling.
One of the world’s most celebrated artists,Yayoi Kusama has developed a unique and diverse body of work that connects profoundly with global audiences. Stars in the Boundless Universe, 2010, is an example drawn from Kusama’s celebrated, ongoing My Eternal Soul series of paintings, which she commenced in 2009. Completed in a signature palette of yellow and black, DOTS OBSESSION [CAMMC], 2018,reflects Kusama’s lifelong preoccupation with the infinite and sublime, as well as the twin themes of cosmic infinity and personal obsession as found in pattern and repetition. Complementing these paintings is Untitled, 1968, a sculpture created during a defining decade for the artist in which she lived and worked in the United States. A recent major retrospective of the artist’s work touredfrom the Gropius Bau, Berlin, to Tel Aviv Museum of Art, closing in April 2022, while the exhibition One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection features five artworks by the artist owned by the museum, including two Infinity Mirror Rooms (on view until 27 November 2022).
Completed in 2005, The Fisherman by Paula Rego is one of a number of major works relating to Rego’s father and scenes from her early life in Portugal. In this work, which is based on a specific episode from the artist’s childhood, a figure (the artist’s father) captures a giant octopus. The surrounding space appears to occupy both interior and exterior worlds and, as a result, seems to point to psychological as much as physical surfacing – the drawing up of thoughts, memories and emotions. A room dedicated to works by Rego features in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani (on view until 27 November 2022). The largest and most comprehensive retrospective of Rego’s work to date is currently on view at Museo Picasso Málaga, Spain (until 21 August 2022).
Stan Douglas’s London, 2011-08-09 (Mare Street), 2017 is one of a number of works by the artist triggered by the uprisings of the early 2010s, including the Arab Spring and riots across global locations including London and the artist’s hometown of Vancouver. Mare Streetfocuses on a scene associated with events in London in August 2011. To create this panoramic mise-en-scène, Douglas conducted intensive research, mining sources including contemporary aerial news reports and still images, meticulously combining his own footage with media images to reconstruct moments frozen at specific points in the unfolding disturbance. Works from this series are currently on view in Venice, where Stan Douglas is representing Canada at the 59th Venice Biennale (on view until 27 November 2022). Further significant current solo exhibitions include Stan Douglas: Revealing Narratives at PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada (until 22 May 2022).
Air from Air (Fallen Sky Series), 2021, by Sarah Sze relates to the artist’s landmark installation Fallen Sky, a permanent, site-specific work nestled into a hillside at Storm King Art Center in Upstate New York. Like Fallen Sky, which was created partly through a process of erosion, the sculpture is inspired by ancient architecture and the language of ruins. The completed work in stainless steel with reflective mirror-polished surfaces catches an ever-changing stream of passing light and shadow across its multiple individual elements. In 2023, work by the artist will be featured in a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
New works created for this presentation include painting by Doron Langberg, whose work can currently be seen in A Place for Me: Figurative Painting Now at ICA Boston; works by María Berrío who features in Women Painting Women, on view at The Modern, Fort Worth, (15 May–25 September 2022); painting by Celia Paul, whose exhibition Memory and Desire (on view at the gallery in London until 14 May 2022), coincides with the publication of Letters to Gwen John; and a new painting by Flora Yukhnovich, who in 2023 will be the first artist to take part in a new series of solo exhibitions responding to the collections of The Ashmolean, Oxford.
Additionally, the gallery will have works available to view by Milton Avery, Inka Essenhigh, David Harrison, Chantal Joffe, Stephen Willats and Francesca Woodman.
Victoria Miro is pleased to participate in the first edition of Frieze Viewing Room, a new partnership with Vortic, the leading virtual and augmented reality platform for the art world. Works by gallery artists will be available to view online in an immersive 3D space. Explore the presentation with an audio guide by artists including Marío Berrío, Inka Essenhigh, Doron Langberg and Grayson Perry.