Tag: Philip Guston

New York is gearing up for a busy September, with the Armory Show alongside other fall art fairs and major exhibitions marking the return of an art world in full swing. With that ahead of us, Hauser & Wirth just announced their September show, “Et in Arcadia Ego,” which is guaranteed to be a must-see. Artist Rashid Johnson conceived of the show in consultation with Hauser & Wirth curatorial senior director Kate Fowle (previously director of MoMA PS1), structuring it around a body of work by acclaimed American artist Leon Golub from the early 1950s to the late 1990s.

It’s rare to see such significant works by this artist in a commercial setting, as most are owned by major museums or in private collections. Indeed, the show will feature substantial loans from both The Broad and the Ulrich Meyer and Harriet Horwitz Meyer Collection. The works will be displayed in conversation with Johnson’s own art, as well as with new and existing pieces by other internationally acclaimed contemporary artists Johnson selected for “Et in Arcadia Ego,” including Philip Guston, david hammons, Wifredo Lam, Sharon Lockhart, Robert Longo, Teresa Margolles, Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Taryn Simon. The exhibition also includes text excerpts from writers like Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones, Samuel Beckett and Percival Everett. The show as a whole will explore the complexities of human nature, focusing on the genesis and accompanying emotions of moments of conflict and uncertainty—which feels fitting in this moment of rising geopolitical tensions and increasing precariousness of societal structures at different levels.

The title “Et in Arcadia Ego” comes from Golub’s 1997 painting Time’s Up, in which the archaic Latin phrase is inscribed over an upturned skull. The Latin phrase is also commonly associated with a Baroque masterwork by Guercino (1591-1666), and the words ‘et in arcadia ego’ are typically translated to mean “I, too, am in Paradise,” with the I referring to death. Mortality was a recurring theme in the Baroque, despite the celebration and emphasis on splendor and magnificence. Much like now, it was a time of dramatic expression of emotional and sensory sensations in a time of secular changes in the order of society, as the temporal and religious powers oppressively responded to ongoing changes to their level of authority.

Golub’s work has always been rich with mythological allusions that reference contemporary societal and political themes. Through his use of scale and ambitious materials, his paintings aim for a stature akin to ancient bas-reliefs of historical narratives. However, in most of his scenes, the classical connotation of heroism is subverted, revealing the inner and external human drama behind each war, battle and combatant.

Golub lived in Italy for several years with his wife, artist Nancy Spero, spending time in Rome between 1959 and 1964. This period was highly formative for his work, as he was deeply inspired by the remnants of ancient culture around the country. He perceived the ancient Roman Empire as a “cosmopolitan urban culture under stress,” characterized by themes of authority and violence, where a more natural relationship with death was a daily experience. Many of Golub’s works reflect an attempt to recover messages from this glorious yet turbulent past, offering timeless metaphors and archetypes of human behavior across time and space. As a source of inspiration for his work, the artist also used to collect ephemera—from slogans, graffiti and tattoos to news photographs and other publicly available imagery—which later nourished his own compositions.

These “radical juxtapositions” and “proxy positionings” have long fueled Johnson’s interest in Golub’s work. Similarly, Johnson strives to archive materials and symbols from recent urban history, creating large-scale works that layer structures and meanings from various sources, using the potential of materials to serve as vessels for cultural memories and stories. “In looking back at the psychological condition of post-war sensibility, I think, as a contemporary African American artist, there are critical and philosophical parallels,” Johnson said in a statement. “I’m interestingly positioned to talk about the potentially transgressive and polarizing dynamic of experiencing a sense of tragedy while figuring out how to illustrate and navigate it.’

Golub foregrounded a relentless commitment to bearing historical witness within images and their remnants, elaborating on the collective historical traumas that tested humanity—such as the Holocaust, the U.S.’s use of the atomic bomb and the highly mediated abuses of the Vietnam War, as well as American interventions in South Africa and Central America in the 1980s.

Through what he describes as a “kaleidoscopic unpacking,” Johnson has selected works for the Hauser & Wirth show featuring individuals from different backgrounds, creating a transitional space where his art and Golub’s works intersect with those of artists who have similarly grappled with the horrors and anxieties of contemporary society.

Golub’s method of scraping and layering paint created something akin to the weathered surfaces of ancient frescoes and sculptures, suggesting both the passage of time and the persistence of violence throughout history. From this perspective, the choice to include artists such as Hammons, McClodden and Margolles was obvious, as they also applied this idea of human traces and cultural remains as a translation of collective traumas and its reading in the inner psychological dimension of the individuals, victims of broader societal and political systems.

What we can expect from the show is a series of powerful conversations aimed at broadening the understanding of Golub’s artistic and sociopolitical research and the extent of it in capturing the feelings of an entire historical age, often foreshadowing the continuation of this human drama in a new century.

“Et In Arcadia Ego,” curated by Rashid Johnson, opens at Hauser & Wirth New York on September 5.