Beautiful, Vivid, Self-contained
Beautiful, Vivid, Self-contained
Curated by David Salle
April 21–July 21, 2023
The Hill Art Foundation is pleased to present Beautiful, Vivid, Self-contained[1], an exhibition of paintings and sculptures curated by the artist and writer David Salle.
The exhibition features works by Richard Aldrich, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Kevin Beasley, Cecily Brown, Francesco Clemente, Robert Colescott, Verne Dawson, Willem de Kooning, Edgar Degas, Martha Diamond, Lucio Fontana, Giambologna, Robert Gober, Mark Grotjahn, Charline von Heyl, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Callum Innes, Tamo Jugeli, Karen Kilimnik, Doron Langberg, Brice Marden, Henri Matisse, Albert Oehlen, Giuseppe Piamontini, Pablo Picasso, Walter Price, Andrea Riccio, Peter Paul Rubens, Amy Sillman, Salman Toor, Cy Twombly, Willem Danielsz van Tetrode, Nicole Wittenberg, and Christopher Wool, along with a painting from 1985 by David Salle.
The exhibition includes works drawn from the collection of the Hill Art Foundation and the collection of Tom and Janine Hill, as well as loans from private collections and artists.
Beautiful, Vivid, Self-contained brings together paintings and sculptures by artists working across different eras, mediums, and geographies to explore the nature of affinity between works of art. As Salle asks in the catalogue essay that accompanies the exhibition: “How can works of art be said to ‘recognize’ each other? How do things made decades or centuries apart, things that may look dissimilar on the surface come to have a communality of tone, and of feeling?”
The exhibition poses a further question: What is the relationship between sensibility and style? Put another way, does an ‘aesthetic personality’ exist, or, can a painting be said to have a nervous system? What is the psychic mapping that undergirds a pictorial attitude, and how can we recognize it?
In grouping the works within the exhibition, Salle taps into the power of juxtaposition, as described by the composer Thomas Adès: “A thing becomes possible which makes another thing possible, which wouldn’t have been possible without it.”[2] Or, as Salle writes, “Juxtaposition is the art of the possible. In visual art, just as in drama, if there is a gun in the first act it must go off in the last. Certain things in a painting create the conditions for other things to occur. Paintings can ‘import’ elements from different aesthetic worlds—if the painting itself has established a sufficiently elastic context. The ways in which that is accomplished are myriad and unpredictable. For the time being, stretchy is good. Stretchy is how we live now.”
[1] This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Janet Malcolm, from whose posthumous memoir Still Pictures, On Photography and Memory its title is taken.
[2] Thomas Adès and Tom Service, Thomas Adès: Full of Noises: Conversations with Tom Service, 1st American ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 178.
Edgar Degas
Cavaliers sur une route, 1864–68
Oil on panel
18 1/4 × 23 3/4 inches (46.4 × 60.3 cm)
Walter Price
Discomfort, 2022
Acrylic and gesso on canvas
40 × 40 inches (101.6 × 101.6 cm)
Collection of David Lewis and Anne Ackerley, New York.
Martha Diamond
Towers, 1986
Oil on canvas
60 × 48 inches (152.4 × 121 cm)
Andrea Riccio
Strigil Bearer, cast circa 1515–20
Bronze
12 3/4 × 5 7/8 × 5 7/8 inches (32.4 × 14.9 × 14.9 cm)
Willem de Kooning
Untitled I, 1978
Oil on canvas
77 × 88 inches (195.6 × 223.5 cm)
Brice Marden
Skull with Thought, 1993–95
Oil on linen
71 × 57 inches (180.3 × 144.8 cm)
Francis Bacon
Study for Figure II, 1953
Oil on canvas
78 × 54 inches (198.1 × 137.2 cm)
David Salle
Reliance, 1985
Oil and acrylic on canvas
78 × 96 inches (198.1 × 243.8 cm)
Peter Paul Rubens
Portrait of a Gentleman, Half-length, Wearing Black, circa 1628–29
Oil on canvas
23 × 17 7/8 inches (58.4 × 45.4 cm)
Giuseppe Piamontini
Milo of Croton, cast circa 1725–30
Bronze
17 3/8 × 6 × 6 3/4 inches (44.1 × 15.2 × 17.1 cm)
Kevin Beasley
Untitled Slab (Concavity II), 2018
Housedresses, kaftans, t-shirts, socks, du-rags, altered garments, polyurethane resin
82 1/2 × 80 1/2 × 5 1/2 inches (209.6 × 204.5 × 14 cm)
Christopher Wool
Untitled, 2001
Silkscreen ink on linen
90 × 60 inches (228.6 × 152.4 cm)
Frank Auerbach
Head of Julia, 1985
Oil on canvas
26 1/8 × 26 1/8 inches (66.4 × 66.4 cm)
Cecily Brown
The use of blue in vertigo, 2022
Oil on linen
59 × 94 inches (149.9 × 238.8 cm)
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Indian #5 Face 45.50), 2014
Oil on cardboard mounted on linen
50 3/8 × 40 1/4 inches (128 × 102.2 cm)
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Indian #5 Face 45.50), 2014
Oil on cardboard mounted on linen
50 3/8 × 40 1/4 inches (128 × 102.2 cm)
Callum Innes
Untitled Lamp Black No. 13, 2013
Oil on linen
70 7/8 × 68 7/8 inches (180 × 175 cm)
Robert Gober
Untitled, 1984
Plaster, wire lath, wood, steel, semi-gloss enamel paint
26 × 31 1/2 × 25 1/2 inches (66 × 80 × 65 cm)
Verne Dawson
Prometheus in the Studio, 2019
Oil on linen
24 1/4 × 20 1/8 inches (61.5 × 51 cm)
Nicole Wittenberg
Cardinal Cove 2, 2022
Oil on canvas
54 × 72 inches (137.2 × 182.9 cm)
Henri Matisse
Study for “Le Chant,” 1938
Charcoal on paper
24 7/8 × 18 7/8 inches (63.2 × 47.9 cm)
Cy Twombly
Solar Barge of Sesostris, 1985–88
Acrylic, wax crayon, and graphite on paper
58 3/4 × 51 3/4 inches (149.2 × 131.4 cm)
Karen Kilimnik
The Temple of Apollo—Voyage to the Bombay Sapphire Sea, 2022
Water-soluble oil on canvas
9 × 13 inches (22.9 × 33 cm)
Salman Toor
Two Citizens, 2023
Oil on canvas
48 × 60 inches (121.9 × 152.4 cm)
Richard Aldrich
The Craggy Face on the Precipice of, 2022
Oil and wax on panel
20 1/2 × 13 1/8 (52.1 × 33.3 cm)
Reggie Burrows Hodges
Swimming in Compton: Shallow End, 2021
Acrylic and pastel on linen
51 1/4 × 61 inches (130.2 x 154.9 cm)
Albert Oehlen
Untitled, 1990
Oil and lacquer on canvas
78 3/4 × 78 3/4 inches (200 × 200 cm)
Pablo Picasso
Femme aux Mains Jointes, 1938
Pencil, charcoal, and oil wash on canvas
31 7/8 × 23 5/8 inches (81 × 60 cm)
Amy Sillman
Untitled (blue, black), 2023
Acrylic and ink on linen
59 x 55 inches (149.9 × 139.7 cm)
Willem Danielsz van Tetrode
Mars Gradivus, cast probably late 1560s
Bronze
15 1/2 × 9 1/4 × 7 1/2 inches (39.4 × 23.5 × 19.1 cm)
Nicole Wittenberg
Cradle Cove 3, 2022
Oil on canvas
48 × 60 inches (121.9 × 152.4 cm)
Robert Colescott
Untitled, circa 1967
Acrylic on canvas
78 3/4 × 59 inches (200 × 149.9 cm)
Tamo Jugeli
Untitled, 2020
Oil on canvas
78 1/4 × 59 1/2 inches (198.8 × 151.1 cm)
Charline von Heyl
RazzleDazzzlePatapouf, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
60 × 50 inches (152.4 × 127 cm)
Francesco Clemente
Day and Night, 1988
Pastel on paper
26 × 19 inches (66 × 48.3 cm)
Giambologna
Astronomy, cast early 1570s
Bronze
15 3/8 x 4 5/8 x 6 inches (39.1 x 11.7 x 15.2 cm)
Doron Langberg
Hari, 2022
Oil on linen
18 × 24 inches (45.7 × 61 cm)