Kasmin is pleased to return to EXPO Chicago with a group presentation of new and historic works representative of the gallery’s leading modern and contemporary program. On view at Booth #139 from April 11–14, 2024 will be works by Diana Al-Hadid, Alma Allen, Theodora Allen, Sara Anstis, Tina Barney, William N. Copley, Ian Davenport, Jimmy Ernst, Liam Everett, Leonor Fini, Jane Freilicher, vanessa german, Daniel Gordon, David Hockney, Elliott Hundley, Elaine de Kooning, Matvey Levenstein, Lyn Liu, Henri Matisse, Robert Motherwell, James Nares, Robert Polidori, Elliott Puckette, Mark Ryden, Jan-Ole Schiemann, Bosco Sodi, Dorothea Tanning, Bernar Venet and Andy Warhol.
A new panel painting by Ian Davenport (b. 1966) will be prominently installed on the booth. Driven by an enduring fascination with the materiality of paint, Davenport has created his signature works by pouring acrylic paint onto a tilted aluminum surface using hypodermic syringes for over two decades. Davenport’s colors, often chosen in reference to major works that define the history of painting, cascade from elegant vertical lines into rich puddles on the gallery floor. His paintings trace an encounter between order and chance, juxtaposing a methodical approach to the line with an experimental assurance in spontaneous color relationships.
Also on view will be a new large-scale bronze sculpture by Alma Allen (b. 1970), continuing the artist’s ongoing series of wall-based sculpture. Allen shapes his sculptures by hand before using contemporary technology to increase their scale, ultimately retaining a personalized, tactile quality. Related works were recently featured in a site-specific solo exhibition at the Museo Anahuacalli, Mexico City, in 2023, conceived and presented in dialogue with the museum’s collection of pre-Columbian objects. Allen’s third solo exhibition at Kasmin will open at the gallery this May.
Citizen artist vanessa german’s (b. 1976) new sculpture features a figure riding a skateboard, energized by the spiritual components that complement its physical materials. Working primarily with assemblage, german sculpts wood and plaster which she then adorns with a range of both found and sourced materials. Binding her art making with her role in community activism, german’s practice spans sculpture, performance, communal rituals, and immersive installation. This presentation anticipates german’s first solo museum exhibition in Chicago, which will open this July at the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, where german is currently the inaugural Joyce Foundation Fellow at the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry.
A new painting from multidisciplinary artist James Nares’ (b. 1953) ongoing brushstrokes series will reprise one of her most recognizable motifs. Realized with an artist-made brush, Nares creates her brushstrokes in one single sweep, creating an objective record of a fluid movement both carefully choreographed and grippingly spontaneous. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will organize a comprehensive retrospective encompassing five decades of Nares’ film and video work this May, during the course of a solo exhibition of works on paper at Kasmin.
In anticipation of American photographer Tina Barney’s (b. 1945) forthcoming European retrospective, opening at the Jeu de Paume in Paris this September, the presentation will include work from a key series by the artist. Having gained recognition in the 1980s for exploring familial rituals and intergenerational cultural habits as seen in carefully-composed photographs of her close friends and family in their own intimate environs, The Europeans spans eight years of work (1996-2004), in which Barney’s posed mise-en-scènes capture serendipitous moments among the upper echelons of six European countries. This work and others from the series will be included in Barney’s retrospective at the Jeu de Paume.
The presentation will include watercolors by Leonor Fini (1907-1996), distinguished from a series the artist made to illustrate André du Bouchet’s French translation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in 1965. Uncovering the working process behind one of a myriad of creative collaborations throughout the artist’s career, the fluidity of Fini’s forms echo the poetic nature of their subject matter and lend to the artist’s distinctly Surrealist visual universe. A solo exhibition highlighting Fini’s expansive oeuvre of paintings, drawings, fashion designs, costumes, artist’s books, and other material will open at the Palazzo Reale, Milan, in Spring 2025.
A new panel painting by Syrian-born, New York-based artist Diana Al-Hadid (b. 1981) will be featured, related to a recent series of wall reliefs that the artist presented to critical acclaim in her first solo exhibition at Kasmin in late 2023. With subtle art historical references culled during the artist’s time studying Islamic miniatures as a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow in 2021, Al-Hadid’s recent shaped panel paintings are realized through the artist’s controlled dripping of a tinted polymer gypsum over commonplace building materials into a hardened cascade. Blending material and substrate, Al-Hadid’s panel paintings are internationally celebrated for weaving enigmatic narratives that engage ancient and modern civilizations.
Liam Everett’s (b. 1973) new painting elaborates the artist’s ongoing investigation of interactive processes by which mineral substances respond to one another. He employs non-traditional methods to apply—and caustic substances such as alcohol or citric acid to remove—oil paint, ink, and sand on canvas. With laser-focused attention to the subtle behaviors of his materials, Everett blurs the line between artist and alchemist, creating abstract paintings that come to life outside of the bounds of narrative or biography, instead connecting deeply with the enigmas of the natural world.
A lone figure whose face is hidden from view carries two red umbrellas over their shoulder in Lyn Liu’s (b. 1993) new painting, deepening the artist’s engagement with the states of isolation that inform the psychological underpinnings of our interpersonal relationships. This voyeuristic perspective offers a lens into the artist’s dreamlike visual universe, populated with absurdist symbols reflective of our social world.
Dorothea Tanning’s (1910–2012) artistic career blossomed in Chicago in the 1930s, where she briefly studied at the Chicago Academy of Art and studied paintings almost daily at the Art Institute of Chicago. Fifty years later, Tanning’s work in watercolor and collage exhibits a sensibility found in her Surrealist painting style, developed over two decades spent in France.
Bernar Venet’s (b. 1941) oil stick with collage showcases the artist’s enduring Angles series, related to a monumental steel Angles sculpture currently installed in Chicago’s Grant Park. Venet’s Angles explore the conceptual possibilities that mathematical and scientific information offers art, an interest that has characterized the artist’s practice since the late 1960s. Venet will open a solo exhibition of early work at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana during La Biennale de Venezia 2024.
About KasminKasmin was founded in New York in 1989 and today represents over forty internationally renowned artists and estates. Placing the work of leading contemporary artists in dialogue with that of historic 20th-century figures, our program reveals throughlines between practices that span multiple generations and disciplines. Kasmin has built a reputation for unwavering support of its artists’ visions, nurturing the careers of eminent contemporary artists and advocating for the enduring relevance of historical work through the representation of their Estates and Foundations. More recently, Kasmin has expanded its range of activities to include the provision of arts education in partnership with local organizations, while encouraging critical discourse through our publishing programs, Kasmin Books and The Kasmin Review.
From the gallery’s early days in SoHo, founder Paul Kasmin (1960–2020) championed artists with an independent vision, building a unique roster with a significant representation of historically important painters, multidisciplinary and self-taught artists, monumental sculptors, and practices that traverse or defy traditional categories in art making. This commitment to artistic excellence and intellectual rigor has anchored the gallery’s mission through its recent evolution in leadership, with Kasmin appointing long-standing director Nicholas Olney as President, Eric Gleason as Head of Sales, and Edith Dicconson and Mariska Nietzman as Executive Directors.
Kasmin’s two primary gallery spaces are situated in the heart of Chelsea. Additionally, on the building’s rooftop, the Kasmin Sculpture Garden program is visible from The High Line, furthering the gallery’s history of presenting large-scale sculpture and engaging in varied public art projects. Outside of the gallery walls, our artists are regularly the subjects of solo exhibitions at prestigious museums and institutions and participants in thought-leading biennales worldwide.
