About
Gagosian is pleased to announce It, an exhibition of new paintings by Jamian Juliano-Villani. It is the artist’s debut at the gallery and opens at the 541 West 24th Street location in New York on March 16.
Juliano-Villani’s irreverent artistry is fueled by her obsession with consumer culture and social taboo, resulting in a mirage of distorted iconography. Augmenting this strategy with an awareness of representational painting’s history, she produces images derived from a personal archive of books, magazines, and photographs, as well as from online sources. Using acrylic, airbrush, and oil painting techniques, she incorporates fragments of her own writing and elements of the work of other artists such as Danish painter and sculptor Ovartaci (1894–1985). Juliano-Villani’s work also refers to cartoons, addressing racial, sexual, and social stereotypes through their mischievous wit and unsettling ambiguity. For her, these kinds of images are “democratic, based on impulse and speed; much like a sniper with a vision.”
The paintings in It see Juliano-Villani pursuing strategies of appropriation and reference that resonate with the work of artists such as Richard Prince, Sturtevant, and particularly Mike Kelley, with whom she shares a fondness for abject and profane imagery. She also cites Robert Gober’s interest in confronting the viewer with suppressed or partially hidden memories. Juliano-Villani adds new conceptual strata to these various influences and prioritizes the communication of ideas over the honing of any specific aesthetic, resulting in an “arranged marriage” of non sequitur form and content. Any hint of grandeur is contrasted with a “dose of reality” provided by everyday commercial iconography.
#JamianJulianoVillani
Artist
Download
Press
Gagosian
press@gagosian.com
Hallie Freer
hfreer@gagosian.com
+1 212 744 2313
Polskin Arts
Meagan Jones
meagan.jones@finnpartners.com
+1 212 593 6485
Jamian Juliano-Villani and Jordan Wolfson
Ahead of her forthcoming exhibition in New York, Jamian Juliano-Villani speaks with Jordan Wolfson about her approach to painting and what she has learned from running her own gallery, O’Flaherty’s.
Touch of Evil
Andrew Russeth situates Jamian Juliano-Villani’s daring paintings within her myriad activities shaking up the art world.
News
Tour
Jamian Juliano-Villani: It
With the artist and Alvaro Barrington
Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 6pm
Gagosian, 541 West 24th Street, New York
Join Gagosian for a walkthrough of Jamian Juliano-Villani: It at Gagosian, New York, with the artist and her friend and fellow painter Alvaro Barrington. The pair—both of whom draw from contemporary culture and art history in their practices—will guide visitors through the mirage of distorted iconography found in Juliano-Villani’s new paintings, in which the artist pursues strategies of appropriation and reference.
Jamian Juliano-Villani, Sloppy Joe’s, 2024 © Jamian Juliano-Villani. Photo: Owen Conway
Talk and Book Signing
Jamian Juliano-Villani
Massimiliano Gioni
Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 6:30pm
Gagosian, 541 West 24th Street, New York
Join Gagosian for a conversation between Jamian Juliano-Villani and Massimiliano Gioni, artistic director of the New Museum, New York, inside the artist’s exhibition It, at Gagosian, New York. The pair will discuss Juliano-Villani’s painterly approach, which draws on a myriad of source material and artistic predecessors such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Ashley Bickerton, as well as her first major publication, Jamian Juliano-Villani: Selected Works, published by Gagosian this year. Designed by Philipp Hubert, the fully illustrated catalogue surveys paintings made from 2013 to 2024, including works from the exhibition, and features an introduction by Hans Ulrich Obrist and an essay by Domenick Ammirati. After the talk, the artist will sign copies of the book, which will be available for purchase.
Left: Jamian Juliano-Villani. Photo: Maris Hutchinson. Right: Massimiliano Gioni. Photo: Scott Rudd, courtesy New Museum