Announcing Global Reopenings and Our Summer 2020 Exhibition Program

‘Larry Bell. Still Standing’  Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd St  6 – 31 July 2020  

‘Larry Bell. Still Standing,’ presents a range of the artist’s sculptural works from the 1970s to the present day. A pioneer in his approach to the surface treatment of glass, and a master of unprecedented explorations of light, reflection, and shadow, Bell has documented perceptual phenomena through a tirelessly inventive sculptural practice. This exhibition charts a less explored, but seminal moment in Bell’s practice when he began to radically deconstruct his signature glass cubes into the more architecturally-scaled, fragmented, crystalline forms or what he referred to as ‘standing walls.’ ‘Still Standing’ also presents a number of the artist’s small-scale studies, illuminating Bell’s process as he meditated on scale and translated his ideas into larger sculptural works. 

‘Jack Whitten. Transitional Space. A Drawing Survey.’  Hauser & Wirth New York, 69th St  6 – 31 July 2020     Hauser & Wirth is pleased to present the first major survey of Jack Whitten’s works on paper, spanning the artist’s six decade career. In addition to his ongoing experimentation with material, process, and technique, Jack Whitten (1939 – 2018) constructed a bridge between gestural abstraction and process art, constantly working toward a nuanced language of painting that employs deeply personal expression. Whitten was also a prolific and powerful draughtsman. The unique body of works on view at Hauser & Wirth testifies to the immensity of his commitment to drawing as a means to make manifest his ideas and advance his methods.   

‘Jack Whitten. Transitional Space. A Drawing Survey.’ spotlights the artist’s playfulness and improvisational skill in searching for his own special visual language. Paper was more than an effective medium for Whitten; for him, working on paper was akin to scientific research. With an aesthetic hypothesis in mind, he worked tirelessly on paper to both subvert and elevate the history of art and how best to represent the many layers of information packed inside his imagination. 

In order to share a safe and positive experience in both of our New York locations, we ask that you book a timed reservation and read our visitor guidelines in full before you arrive.

Lorna Simpson. Special Characters Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong 16 June – 30 September Opening reception: Tuesday 16 June, 5 – 8pm Beginning 16 June, Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong presents ‘Special Characters’, the first solo exhibition in Greater China of renowned artist Lorna Simpson. The exhibition features new works from the artist’s Special Characters series, alongside a selection of her recent paintings and photographic collages. In addition to building upon themes that are essential to her practice, including the nature of representation, identity, gender, and race, Simpson incorporates imagery of the natural world, universal elements that transcend human presence. By repurposing and reconfiguring found images – a signature source in her work – Simpson creates her own highly distinctive visual terrain that offers a potent response to American life today.

To Exalt the Ephemeral: Alina Szapocznikow, 1962 – 1972 Hauser & Wirth London By appointment from 15 June, then from 1 July to 1 August In a brief but explosively inventive career, Alina Szapocznikow (1926 – 1973) radically re-conceptualised sculpture as a vehicle for exploring, liberating and declaring bodily experience.

‘To Exalt the Ephemeral: Alina Szapocznikow, 1962 – 1972,’ reveals the full expressive potential of this pioneering Polish artist’s work through the material innovations she made during the last decade of her life and is the first solo presentation of Szapocznikow’s work in the UK since her acclaimed exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield in 2017.

A version of this travelling exhibition was first shown at Hauser & Wirth in New York in late 2019. A new title from Hauser & Wirth Publishers features essays by Margot Norton and Pavel Pyś and gives further insights into the work of this remarkable artist.

Isa Genzken. Window Hauser & Wirth London By appointment from 15 June, then from 1 July to 1 August ‘Window’ is an exhibition at our London gallery by Isa Genzken featuring a new and unseen body of work. Genzken’s immersive environment expands on the themes of travel, through elements of an aircraft cabin, and the window as a juncture between interior and exterior spaces.

In this respect, it reveals the artist’s interest in architecture and light, a topic of enduring resonance in her work as seen in the landmark exhibition in Chicago in 1992, ‘Everybody Needs at Least One Window.’ In order to share a safe and positive experience, we ask that you book a timed reservation and read our visitor guidelines in full before you arrive.

Don McCullin. The Stillness of Life Hauser & Wirth Somerset 1 July – 6 September In Somerset, ‘Don McCullin. The Stillness of Life’ is a focused presentation of over 60 landscape photographs, mapping Sir Don McCullin CBE’s intimate relationship with the local landscape of Somerset and continued passion for global travel since the 60s. Regarded as one of the most accomplished war photographers of recent times, McCullin has spent the last six decades travelling to remote locations and witnessing harrowing scenes of conflict and destruction. Often referring to the British countryside as his greatest salvation, McCullin demonstrates the full mastery of his medium with stark black and white images resonating with human emotion. This personal survey depicts scenes from across the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia, revealing McCullin’s innermost feelings through powerful compositions of wild heavens, haunting vistas and meditative still lifes.

Not Vital. SCARCH Hauser & Wirth Somerset 1 July – 6 September Hauser & Wirth Somerset is pleased to present ‘SCARCH,’ a solo exhibition by Not Vital, organized with Olivier Renaud-Clém=ent and Giorgia von Albertini. The multidisciplinary exhibition will highlight the Swiss artist’s deep-rooted interest in the relationship between architecture, landscape and human perception.

A conflation of the two words sculpture and architecture, ‘SCARCH’ transcends the boundaries of both formal terms, creating immersive, site-specific structures that provide a sense of wonder by means of alternative perspectives. Vital has travelled and exhibited widely since the 1970s, living between the United States, Niger, Italy and China, as well as his native Switzerland.

The works on display will span Not Vital’s expansive oeuvre over the past five decades, ranging from early rudimental works from the 1960s, portrait sculptures, mixed-media works on paper and socially-driven installations relating to his global projects. When planning your visit to Somerset, please use our new booking system to make a reservation in advance.

Lucio Fontana. Walking the Space: Spatial Environments, 1948 – 1968 Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles 1 July – 13 September ‘Lucio Fontana. Walking the Space: Spatial Environments, 1948 – 1968’ is the first comprehensive presentation in the US of the late Italian master’s groundbreaking ‘Ambienti spaziali’ (Spatial Environments).

Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero in collaboration with the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan, this landmark exhibition highlights Fontana’s critical contribution to the evolution of conceptual art and the confluence of art with science and technology as a means to explore aspects of human perceptual experience. Arranged chronologically and beginning with the artist’s first spatial work, the exhibition features nine of Fontana’s environments, dating from the years spanning 1948 to 1968.

Fontana, a visionary whose revolutionary practice continues to exert influence upon artists internationally, conceived his first environment in 1948, significantly predating and anticipating the immersive conceptual and spatial achievements of such defining figures as Piero Manzoni, Yayoi Kusama, and James Turrell.

August Sander: New Women, New Men, and New Identities Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles 1 July – 19 July In partnership with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hauser & Wirth presents ‘August Sander: New Women, New Men, and New Identities,’ an exhibition that brings together pathbreaking portraits by renowned German photographer August Sander (1876 – 1964) with original examples of the first gay and lesbian journals ever published.

This presentation marks the first solo exhibition in Los Angeles in over a decade devoted to Sander’s pioneering work. ‘New Women, New Men, and New Identities’ is curated by Stephanie Barron, senior curator and head of modern art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and independent curator Nana Bahlmann.

Ed Clark Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles Opening mid-August A pioneer of the New York School, Ed Clark (1926 – 2019) extended the language of American abstraction beyond expressionism through his inventive use of pure color, abstract form, and the seductive materiality of paint.

Following the acclaimed Hauser & Wirth New York exhibition devoted to Clark’s paintings made after 2000, the presentation in Los Angeles will forefront the artist’s highly formative years, 1960 – 1980, during which he made important breakthroughs in abstract painting. This intimate presentation of ten key paintings marks Clark’s first solo LA gallery presentation in over 30 years.

In order to share a safe and positive experience at our Los Angeles location, we ask that you book a timed a reservation and read our visitor guidelines in full before you arrive.

Stronger Than Language Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz 11 June – 5 July Our St. Moritz gallery celebrates the reopening of its doors for the summer season with a group exhibition ‘Stronger Than Language.’ A vibrant selection of painting and sculpture, each work demonstrates the unique ways in which artists use color and form to communicate with the viewer.

Acting as a powerful form of language, these artistic tools have been harnessed by artists throughout art history to express mood, conjure emotion and create affect. The display includes works by contemporary and modern masters Rita Ackermann, Frank Auerbach, Phyllida Barlow, Larry Bell, Louise Bourgeois, Geta Brătescu, John Chamberlain, Eduardo Chillida, Martin Creed, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Lucio Fontana, Suzan Frecon, Günther Förg, Ellen Gallagher, Mary Heilmann, Eva Hesse, Jenny Holzer, Paul McCarthy, Takesada Matsutani, Franz West, and Zhang Enli.

Stefan Brüggemann. UNTITLED ACTION (GOLD PAINTINGS) Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz 10 July – 30 August Spanning – and sometimes combining – sculpture, video, painting, and installation, Stefan Brüggemann’s work deploys text in conceptual installations rich with acerbic social critique and a post pop aesthetic. For his inaugural exhibition at Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz, the artist presents a brand-new series of gold-leaf works made during the lockdown in 2020.

Evolving from his existing Text Pieces, these laconic texts employ language we regularly encounter in our accelerated digital lives. Presented as shortened modern poems, this new series offers a caustic perspective on modernity and the digital age – the staccato rhythms of these sloganistic lines mirroring the relentlessness of newsfeed culture. Working with gold leaf as the main medium in the works, Brüggemann speaks of how gold fluctuates between being an economic and a spiritual power. These fluctuations during this time of uncertainty, question its real value.

Günther Förg. surface of bronze Hauser & Wirth Zürich 11 May – 31 July A survey exhibition of Günther Förg’s sculptures, titled ‘surface of bronze,’ is open at Hauser & Wirth Zürich, focusing on the artist’s work from the mid 1980s through to 2008. The exhibition presents rarely, and never before seen, pieces to contextualize this important part of Förg’s multifaceted, complex and varied practice.

As an artist he insistently, and resolutely, questioned and expanded upon Modernism’s formal vocabulary in a laconic oeuvre that encompassed painting, photography, drawing and sculpture. This presentation will highlight how he upturned and challenged classical bronze, translating it with his tactile, painterly and spontaneous methods. Luchita Hurtado.

Just Down the Street Hauser & Wirth Zürich 11 May – 31 July In an extensive eighty-year career spanning various artistic movements and styles, Venezuelan-born, Los Angeles-based artist Luchita Hurtado has dedicated her practice to investigating the interconnectedness of the natural world, the cosmos and the environment. For her inaugural presentation at Hauser & Wirth Zürich entitled ‘Just Down the Street,’ an intimate selection of Hurtado’s early works from the 1960s are on display – a dynamic series of drawings and paintings on paper that reflect a moment of flux between abstraction and figuration.

By merging visceral and abstract sensibilities, the works on view express a universality and transcendence that have continued to define the artist’s practice for decades.

Chillida Leku Reopening 20 June Open Friday to Monday, 10 am – 4 pm Friday and Saturday: evenings at the museum 7 to 9 pm + dinner (optional) up to midnight Founded by Eduardo Chillida during his lifetime, it is home to the most comprehensive body of works by the artist.

Since first opening in 2000, this museum dedicated to Eduardo Chillida has upheld its mission to promote and conserve his work. The museum is delighted to reopen its doors to the public on 20 June, and is planning a range of outdoor activities for its summer program. – Learn more about our Locations worldwide and visit this page for ongoing updates about our galleries and opening hours.