Art fair: ADAA: The Art Show: Michelle Stuart

Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, in collaboration with Marc Selwyn Fine Art, is pleased to announce a presentation of historical works by Michelle Stuart for The Art Show 2024. Since the 1960's, Michelle Stuart (b. 1933, Los Angeles, CA) has created pioneering works that synthesize Land Art, drawing, painting and sculpture. Through her use of nontraditional often organic materials, Stuart brings the natural environment into her work, exploring a diverse array of cultures and their relationship to the land. Collapsing time, memory and place, Stuart's work addresses the metaphysical while remaining profoundly rooted in its own materiality and the artist's knowledge of archeology, botany, and history.

Throughout her career, Stuart has been an explorer and a voyager, traveling the world to collect and record natural and cultural phenomena and creating works that embody a sense of place. In #14 Blue Stone, 1973, an early and iconic graphite rubbing by the artist, Stuart captures the subtle variations of the ground at the site where the work was created. Gestural markings recorded onto the large-scale paper scroll create a vibrating surface, both ethereal and immersive.

In other works, Stuart's process begins in the landscape and is completed in her studio. In Strata Series: Copan - Stela C, 1979, for example, Stuart takes soil from the Mayan archeological site and later incorporates it into muslin-backed paper. With Book of the Stone, 1984-85, Stuart binds together leaves of earth-laden frottage, turning a symbol of learning and sagesse into an object of mystery.

A documentary on the artist, Michelle Stuart: Voyager, produced by Karen Shapiro and directed by Karen Bellone is currently in production.

A comprehensive survey of Stuart's work will be presented at The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles in 2026.