PAOLA PIVI

Posted on 2013-10-14

Pivi creates artworks that are disorienting and simultaneously poetic. Though formally different, her work pushes the limit of what can be done in this world as an artwork. Her first comprehensive solo exhibition in the United States will take over both floors of the gallery and feature exclusive new
works. On the ground floor, Pivi will present an installation of eight fantastic creatures. The polars bears will return in Paola’s art! An unexpected performing
sculpture, “Money machine (true blue, baby I love you)” will also be on display on the lower level, evoking the topography of the New York building which was previously a bank and hosted a vault.

Nomadic by nature, Paola Pivi has lived all over the world, including Shanghai, the remote island of Alicudi in southern Italy, and Anchorage, Alaska. She is
presently in India. Pivi first exhibited at Viafarini in Milan in 1995, the same year she enrolled in the Brera Academy of Art in Milan. In 1999, she was co-awarded
the Golden Lion for the best national pavilion (Italy) at Harald Szeemann’s Venice Biennial. For this venue, which featured five Italian artists, Pivi presented “Untitled (airplane)”, an inverted Fiat G-91 airplane resting on its cockpit.

Exhibition runs through to October 26th, 2013

Galerie Perrotin
909 Madison Avenue
NY
10021
New York
USA

www.perrotin.com

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RICHARD PRINCE – PROTEST PAINTINGS

Posted on 2013-10-14

Painted on a vertical canvas in the shape of a protest placard, the Protest Paintings alternate between monochromatic minimalism and richly layered colourful abstraction. Incorporating recycled jokes, printed and hand-written, as well as mined pattern details silkscreened onto the canvas, these paintings are characteristic of Prince’s tenet of appropriation. A mainstay in his oeuvre, the classic one-liners offer comic respite, whilst also challenging the antipathy between high and low art. Masking a menacing truth behind a veil of humour, the jokes are subversive in their purpose.

Purposefully ambiguous, the scrawled slogans resist interpretation, enacting their very own protest through language. Refusing to conform to the standards of the art value system, the Protest Paintings seemingly channel the spirit of the 1960’s counterculture, a defining era to which Prince bore witness.

Featuring paintings from public and private collections, the exhibition demonstrates the breadth of Prince’s creativity in this singular body of work. The range of paintings on show includes monochrome canvases with printed and handwritten jokes, patterned canvases with block text and brightly coloured abstract compositions overlaid with graffiti and drip marks.

In contrast to the formulaic design of the earlier Monochrome Joke paintings, in the Protest Paintings we see Prince’s full creative involvement. Carefully assembling different segments of canvas to form the symbolic crossbow shape of the protest placard, Prince combines gestural brushstrokes with under-painting, silkscreen and disjointed signs, to create a palimpsest of art historical reference and his own particular brand of humour. A visual expression of the performativity that is both characteristic of a protest and a constant element throughout Prince’s oeuvre, the Protest Paintings are a masterful example of Prince’s unique artistic practice.

Opposite – Untitled (Protest Painting), 1994

Exhibition runs through to December 20th, 2013

Skarstedt Gallery
23 Old Bond Street
London
W1S 4PZ

www.skarstedt.com

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