KEN PRICE – PRIMAL, PHYSICAL, SENSUAL
2025-10-13Early in his career, Price made a series of innovative ceramic cups, often adorned with snails or frogs, or emerging from rock-like bases. The title of the exhibition is taken from a statement Price made about this work that speaks to the most fundamental aspects of his influential, five-decadelong career: “I just like the cup. I think it’s a real kind of primal idiom. When you use a cup, it’s right in your hand, and you actually put it to your mouth and drink warm liquid from it. That is very primal, physical, and sensual, and is representative of sensual life.”
Price found a powerful source of inspiration in nature, from the erupting volcanoes seen in his frequent travels to Hawaii, to the spectacular desert landscapes of his home in Taos, New Mexico. Beginning with the cups in the 1960s, then the specimen rocks of the 1980s, and finally the later, biomorphic sculptures for which he is best known, the exhibition highlights how Price synthesized these forms together with everyday objects and the human body. The sculptures and drawings on view, “seduce and enlighten,” as the critic Roberta Smith has written of his work.
Opposite – Droop, 2002
Exhibition runs through to October 25th, 2025
Matthew Marks Gallery
523 West 24th Street
NY 10011
New York
