About
The color makes the structure.
—Stanley Whitney
Gagosian is pleased to present There Will Be Song, an exhibition of new paintings by Stanley Whitney. Opening March 30, this will be the gallery’s first exhibition of paintings by Whitney since announcing its representation of the artist.
Vibrant and lyrical, Whitney’s paintings emerge from his ongoing exploration of color and composition. Each work is composed of rectilinear, predominantly monochrome blocks of oil color in three or four registers demarcated by horizontal bands. Working extemporaneously within this compositional structure, the artist selects each successive tone in relation to those already applied. The paintings’ brushwork reveals the active trace of the artist’s hand through variations in direction of application and opacity of pigment.
Pursuing abstraction since the mid-1970s, Whitney consolidated a process-based approach while living in Rome in the 1990s. In Italy, he was captivated by ancient Roman murals and the transformative effect of light on the façades of historic buildings such as the Colosseum, prompting a new understanding of color and geometry. Responding as well to his study of artists such as Piet Mondrian, Giorgio Morandi, and Mark Rothko, and to American quiltmakers, he has developed this body of work over the course of three decades.
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Stanley Whitney: Vibrations of the Day
Stanley Whitney invited professor and musician-biographer John Szwed to his studio on Long Island, New York, as he prepared for an upcoming survey at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum to discuss the resonances between painting and jazz.
Book Corner
Private Pages Made Public
Megan N. Liberty explores artists’ engagement with notebooks and diaries, thinking through the various meanings that arise when these private ledgers become public.
The Space Is in the Color: Stanley Whitney
Stanley Whitney reflects on the evolution of his work with Louise Neri, from his formative early days in New York to the pivotal period he spent living and working in Rome, arriving at the highly distinctive paintings for which he is now known. They explore the diverse and surprising influences of art and music on Whitney’s oeuvre, as well as his process and practice.
Stanley Whitney: Rhythm and Vision
While preparing his first exhibition with Gagosian, in Rome, Stanley Whitney speaks with Louise Neri in his New York studio about how he arrived at his unique and intuitive approach to color and space in painting, employing a dynamic fusion of preordained structure and improvisation.
Stanley Whitney: The Ruins
For American painter Stanley Whitney, Italy remains a central and enduring source of inspiration. Matthew Jeffrey Abrams, the author of a new monograph on the artist, reflects on the profound and far-reaching influence of Italian art and architecture on Whitney’s art.