Jack Whitten
Self Portrait With Satellites

June 23 - September 23, 2018

Los Angeles

Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles is proud to present ‘Jack Whitten. Self Portrait With Satellites.’ This commemorative survey celebrates Jack Whitten’s (1939 – 2018) unique ability to convey the power of philosophical, scientific, and mathematical concepts through an exquisite abstraction. The first exhibition in LA devoted to the artist in nearly 30 years, the presentation opens in conjunction with ‘Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963 – 2017,’ currently on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art through July 2018 and traveling to the Met Breuer in New York.

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Events

Sat 23 Jun 2018, 6 pm – 12 am

Public opening: ‘Jack Whitten. Self Portrait With Satellites’

Please join us for the opening reception of ‘Jack Whitten. Self Portrait With Satellites’, a commemorative survey celebrating Jack Whitten’s (1939 – 2018) innovative transfiguration of paint and his profound ability to materialize philosophical, scientific, and mathematical concepts through abstraction.

Exhibition Walkthrough of ‘Jack Whitten. Self Portrait With Satellites’ with MCASD Director Kathryn Kanjo

Join us for a walkthrough of ‘Jack Whitten. Self Portrait With Satellites’ led by The David C. Copley Director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Kathryn Kanjo. This commemorative survey celebrates Jack Whitten’s (1939 – 2018) unique ability to convey the power of philosophical, scientific, and mathematical concepts through an exquisite abstraction. The first exhibition in LA devoted to the artist in nearly 30 years, the presentation opens in conjunction with ‘Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963 – 2017,’ currently on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art through July 2018 and traveling to the Met Breuer in New York. This event is free, however, reservations are recommended. Click here to register.

Reading & Book Launch: Jack Whitten ‘Notes from the Woodshed’

Hauser & Wirth Publishers is proud to present ‘Notes from the Woodshed’ – the first publication devoted to the writings of Jack Whitten (1939 – 2018). On the occasion of the artist’s commemorative survey in Los Angeles, ‘Jack Whitten. Self Portrait With Satellites,’ and in celebration of the recent publication, please join us for a reading of select excerpts by Whitten’s close friends and former students, alongside LA-based artists and curators. Readers include: Candida Alvarez, Jose Luis Blondet, Joshua Chambers Letson, Erin Christovale, Harry Dodge, Naima Keith, Diana Nawi, Betye Saar, Gary Simmons, Lily Blue Simmons, Bennett Simpson, and Alphaeus Taylor. We are also honored to welcome Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles, Robin Coste Lewis, who will read her new poem ‘Mother Church Number 10: Homage to Whitten.’ This event is free, however, due to limited capacity reservations are recommended. Click here to register. About ‘Jack Whitten. Notes from the Woodshed’ Widely celebrated for his experimental approach to painting, Jack Whitten often turned to writing as a way to investigate, understand, and grapple with his practice and his milieu. ‘Notes from the Woodshed’ is the first publication devoted to Whitten’s writings and takes its name from the heading Whitten scrawled across many of his texts. Working across various forms – from meticulous daily logs, to developed longer essays, to published statements and public talks – Whitten’s reflections span the course of his six-decade career and give conceptual depth to an oeuvre that bridged rhythms of gestural abstraction and process art. Together, these writings shed light on Whitten’s singularly nuanced language of painting, which hovers between mechanical automation and intensely personal expression.

Family Studio Workshop: Mosaic Portraits

Artist Jack Whitten once wrote in a studio note from 2012, ‘all of my memorial paintings are gifts to the people that inspired them… they are not mere dedications… they are gifts.’ For this month’s Family Studio Workshop, participants will create their own mosaic ‘self-portrait’ painting in honor of someone they love, using square foam tiles on poster board. The workshop will be led by Matt MacFarland. Educators will be available every half hour, beginning at 12.30 pm, to guide children and parents on walkthroughs of ‘Jack Whitten. Self Portrait With Satellites’ to view the works that inspired this month’s project. This event is free, however, reservations are recommended. Click here to register. About Jack Whitten. ‘Self-Portrait with Satellites’ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles is proud to present ‘Jack Whitten. Self Portrait With Satellites.’ This commemorative survey celebrates Jack Whitten’s (1939 – 2018) unique ability to convey the power of philosophical, scientific, and mathematical concepts through an exquisite abstraction. ‘Self Portrait With Satellites’ takes viewers on a journey through the various permutations of abstraction that span the artist’s entire career. The exhibition brings together self-portraits and other paintings from Whitten’s own personal collection, many of which the artist studied on a daily basis, and offers an intimate glimpse into the artist’s core beliefs about art, his deep philosophical concerns, and the people that inspired him. Photo: Mario de Lopez

About the artist

Born in Bessemer, Alabama in 1939, Jack Whitten is celebrated for his innovative processes of applying paint to the surface of his canvases and transfiguring their material terrains. Although Whitten initially aligned with the New York circle of abstract expressionists active in the 1960s, his work gradually distanced from the movement's aesthetic philosophy and formal concerns, focusing more intensely on the experimental aspects of process and technique that came to define his practice.

Current Exhibitions