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Ron Gorchov

MONSIEUR X

Vito Schnabel Projects - New York

OCT 4 - NOV 2, 2013

Monsieur X Installation

Installation view, Ron Gorchov, Monsieur X, Vito Schnabel, New York, 2013

Monsieur X Installation

Installation view, Ron Gorchov, Monsieur X, Vito Schnabel, New York, 2013

Monsieur X Installation

Installation view, Ron Gorchov, Monsieur X, Vito Schnabel, New York, 2013

Monsieur X Installation

Installation view, Ron Gorchov, Monsieur X, Vito Schnabel, New York, 2013

Press Release

PRESS RELEASE
 
A revolutionary figure in postwar American art, Ron Gorchov helped defy the New York School in the mid 1960s by pushing painting to its extreme. Even as he continued to address the issues of abstraction, direct confrontation and speechlessness, Gorchov expanded the conceptual paradigm of painting to encompass a new level of generous and physical immediacy. For Ron Gorchov the painting has become a living constellation, the painterly gesture no longer merely a formal response to an evolving composition.

Thank you, Ron Gorchov; from snow on the body of the painting can be rendered simultaneouslybeautiful, grotesque and poetic.


- Ugo Rondinone

Vito Schnabel is pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition at his new space in the West Village, Ron Gorchov: Monsieur X. This marks the ten year anniversary of Schnabel’s first exhibition, Incubator (NY, 2003). Monsieur X. will feature three black paintings from the past four decades: Spice of Life (1976), Samba (2005), and Monsieur X. (2013). 

Ron Gorchov (b. 1930, Chicago) is an American artist who has been working with curved surface paintings since 1967. He created his first shaped canvas work in Mark Rothko’s studio. Gorchov was part of a group of artists working in Manhattan in the 1960s and 70s, such as Frank Stella, Richard Tuttle, Blinky Palermo and Ellsworth Kelly, who helped to spearhead the shaped canvas movement. Gorchov is one of the last of that generation still working today. His paintings are included in many prominent collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum.

Schnabel has worked with Gorchov since 2005, when he presented an overview of the artist’s work from the 1970s through the early 2000s. It was the first comprehensive exhibition of Ron’s work and led to a solo exhibition the following year at MoMA PS1.