Inspired by a 1933 painting by Balthus generously loaned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, celebrated artist Peter Doig has curated what promises to be an epic exhibition opening on November 1 at Gagosian in New York. The show will explore urban life, labor and architecture, interpreted by artists like Francis Bacon, Max Beckmann, Vija Celmins, Prunella Clough, Giorgio De Chirico, Denzil Forrester, Jean Hélion, Mark Rothko and Martin Wong. A new work by Doig himself will also be featured.
“This exhibition was born from more than a year of conversations and represented, for me, an exciting opportunity to present a selection of works by painters that I admire for their inventiveness and ability to surprise,” said Doig in a statement. “Larry immediately recognized the potential for an exhibition informed by the eye of a painter rather than a curator or gallerist and is the ideal partner to bring it to fruition.”
To mount the exhibition, the gallery has secured important loans from significant institutional and private collections in the United States and Europe, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Rothko family collection and Tate. Larry Gagosian also issued a statement, in which he shared that the idea to have Doig curate the show came to him after seeing the artist’s project at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, where Doig orchestrated a suggestive dialogue with selected pieces from the museum’s collection.
This exhibition will mark one of the final shows at Gagosian’s historic space at 980 Madison Avenue, as RFR Holdings, the building owner, has leased 85 percent of the space to Bloomberg Philanthropies through July 31, 2053. Gagosian has maintained space in 980 Madison since 1987, debuting with “Jasper Johns: The Maps” in February of 1989. Currently, the gallery is showing a solo presentation of work by another star on its roster, Mark Grotjahn, at the location.
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Known for his enigmatic, dreamlike paintings, Doig is one of the most celebrated contemporary artists and a stable auction phenomenon. His limited production, paired with his reluctance to sell certain pieces, has driven the high demand for his works. His auction record stands at $39,862,500 for Swamped (1990), achieved at Christie’s in 2021, surpassing his previous record of $28.8 million for Rosedale (1991), set at Phillips in 2017. Notably, Doig has publicly discussed how high prices on secondary markets hurt rather than help artists, who don’t necessarily benefit financially from those kinds of headline-generating sales.
Doig is prominently featured in the Pinault Collection, which owns iconic works like Red Canoa (2000). His paintings often reduce compositions to their essential elements, focusing on luminosity and chromatic atmosphere, which heightens their psychological intensity. His characters seem lost in time, suspended in a melancholic liminality that poetically reflects or alludes to Doig’s own experience of displacement, growing up between the Caribbean, Canada, and London before returning to Canada.
Doig’s works are the result of his process of appropriating, blending and combining various visual and photographic sources that are completely reinvented and reimagined with his dramatic use of color. At the same time, as some critics have commented, his works bear witness to humanity’s cruelty toward nature and depict the suffering of landscapes and living beings in a world where timeless balances have been subverted. Given the artist’s deep connection with the natural landscape, it will be fascinating to see how he tackles the urban environment in this show.
“The Street,” curated by Peter Doig opens at Gagosian New York on November 1. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog featuring reflections by Doig on each work and a conversation with art historian Richard Shiff about Balthus’s The Street.
