Calder / Kelly
November 9, 2018 – January 9, 2019
Lévy Gorvy
909 Madison Avenue New York, NY, 10021
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 8, 2018, 6–8PM
Beginning November 9, 2018, Lévy Gorvy will present Calder / Kelly, the first major exhibition to explore the visual and personal affinities between landmark American artists Alexander Calder (1989-1976) and Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2016). The exhibition comprises approximately three dozen paintings and sculptures made over the course of five decades, including Calder’s 1954 mobile Red Maze III and 1940 sculpture Black Beast, and Kelly’s paintings Red White (1962) and Three Gray Panels (1987). Presented in collaboration with the Calder Foundation and Ellsworth Kelly Studio, the exhibition suggests a cross-generational discourse and celebrates the artists’ friendship and extraordinary experiences as Americans who were shaped by significant periods of time spent living in Paris.
Over the three floors of Lévy Gorvy’s building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a dynamic exchange between two virtuosic talents will take shape. Animated by the tension between figuration and abstraction, the works on view suggest intriguing intersections, including the striking repartee between two- and three-dimensionality (which, in Calder’s case, extends to four-dimensionality) that is a notable element of each artist’s oeuvre. In their works, the boundaries between positive and negative space—object and shadow—become unclear, destabilizing our grasp of figure and ground.
This effect is heightened by the artists’ shared preference for a graphic palette dominated by black and white, and high-chroma colors. The aesthetic dialogue between Calder and Kelly extends through an attendant display of art directly exchanged as gestures of friendship and mutual artistic rapport. Letters and other documents illuminate a relationship where creativity and high personal regard were beautifully intertwined.
Calder / Kelly will remain on view through January 9, 2019. A fully illustrated catalogue will follow the exhibition, featuring texts by Calder biographer Jed Perl, curator Veronica Roberts, and philosopher Robert Hopkins, while Simon Perchik, Forrest Gander, and Dan Chiasson will contribute poems inspired by the artists.
As part of the gallery’s programming, composer Lea Bertucci has been commissioned to create an immersive sound piece, utilizing the natural acoustics and highly resonant spaces of our landmark building for the TILT Brass ensemble. Drawing on Calder’s palpable transformation of space and Kelly’s distillation of natural forms into their purest abstraction, musicians will be positioned on three floors of the gallery’s building on the evening of Wednesday, November 28, passing tones up and down the stairs and throughout the galleries. The performance is intended to create swells of dynamic reverberation that reach visitors as they view the works of art on view.
Above
LEFT: Alexander Calder. Red Maze III 1954
Sheet metal, wire, and paint
56 x 72 inches (142.2 x 182.9 cm)
Courtesy Calder Foundation, New York / Art Resource, New York
© 2018 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Photo: Tom Powel Imaging.
RIGHT: Ellsworth Kelly. Red White 1962.
Oil on canvas, 83 1/2 x 67 inches (212.1 x 170.2 cm)
Courtesy San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
© Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
Photo: Katherine Du Tiel
Learn more about Lévy Gorvy here.
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