Art Basel Miami Beach: Booth F22

Galerie Lelong & Co., New York and Paris, are pleased to participate in Art Basel: Miami Beach 2022 with works from our international program by Etel Adnan, Leonardo Drew, Günther Förg, Ficre Ghebreyesus, David Hockney, Samuel Levi Jones, Jannis Kounellis, Ana Mendieta, Jaume Plensa, Zilia Sánchez, Tariku Shiferaw, Kiki Smith, Michelle Stuart, Mildred Thompson, Barthélémy Toguo, Juan Uslé, Fabienne Verdier, and Ursula von Rydingsvard. The presentation includes a strong emphasis on contemporary sculpture, alongside new and recent works in painting and works on paper.

For Art Basel’s curated Kabinett sector, we are pleased to present a group of small paintings on wood by Günther Förg. Though Förg is better known for his large paintings, for a period in the mid-2000s he enjoyed creating small replicas of larger works. They are representative of Förg’s signature language of abstraction and indicative of his masterful understanding of space.

New works by Leonardo Drew, Samuel Levi Jones, Tariku Shiferaw, and Barthélémy Toguo will be presented alongside rarely exhibited works by Ficre Ghebreyesus and Mildred Thompson. Leonardo Drew is known for creating contemplative abstract sculptural works that play upon the tension between order and chaos, recalling post-Minimalist sculpture that alludes to America’s industrial past. Number 358 (2022) continues the artist’s exploration of the grid as a system to simultaneously disrupt and control action. A selection of paintings by Ficre Ghebreyesus exemplifies the artist's bold use of brightly hued woven shapes echoing Eritrean textiles. Five paintings by Ghebreyesus were recently included in the 59th Venice Biennale curated by Cecilia Alemani. Samuel Levi Jones's Letting go (2022) is composed of pulped medical textbooks and law textbooks; the act of deconstructing these objects of assumed authority provide space for an examination of their flaws. A new work by Tariku Shiferaw, Gbon (Burna Boy) (2022), from his ongoing series of paintings One of These Black Boys which references musical genres originating in Black communities, will be exhibited for the first time. Mildred Thompson's painting Advancing Impulses (1997) is demonstrative of her interest in visually interpreting scientific theories and systems of astronomy and physics invisible to the eye. Barthélémy Toguo foregrounds concerns with both ecological and societal implications in abstract paintings that connect nature and the human body. A monumental work by Toguo, The Pillar of the Missing Migrants (2022), is currently on view under the pyramid at the Louvre Museum, Paris.

Works by artists known for their vivid, emotive responses to natural forms will be on view. Juan Uslé's paintings engage the viewer through entrancing rhythmic patterns which can be evocative of bustling cities, the fluidity of bodies of water or serve as a transcript of real time through a filmstrip-like recording of the artist’s heartbeat. Ana Mendieta’s Ochún (1981/2018) is a metaphor that bridges the artist’s displacement from and return to Cuba with her new home. The work, which exists as a photograph and a film, was created on the shore off Key Biscayne, intentionally placed between the United States island and the island of Cuba. The water that runs through the silhouette sculpted from sand links the shores of both countries. Michelle Stuart's Rarotonga (1986-87) is composed of encaustic, pigment, and plants collected from the South Pacific Island; the natural material becomes a tangible component of the artwork.

Sculpture continues to be a hallmark of the gallery program, and we are pleased to present a selection of works by some of the gallery's most celebrated sculptors. A pair of meditative portraits by Jaume Plensa, one a stainless-steel sculpture and the other a graphite drawing on paper, demonstrate a core theme of Plensa's practice—the unification of individuals through connections of spirituality, the body, and collective memory. A new wall-based sculpture by Ursula von Rydingsvard demonstrates her continued innovation of her visual language in cedar; the artist has intensified the vivification of crevices and dynamic transitions. Zilia Sánchez’s signature style consists of undulating silhouettes, a muted color palette, and a unique, sensual vocabulary; her free-standing sculpture Luna Lunar (2000/2019) which was recently realized in marble is accompanied by a historic work on canvas, Eros (1976/1998), demonstrating the artist’s continued innovation of formal abstraction over a 65-year career.

A sculptural painting by Jannis Kounellis composed of coats and Murano glass on an iron plate is at once brutalist and intimate. For Kounellis, a key figure of the Italian Arte Povera movement, materials were infused with memory, adding a profoundly human sentiment to his works. Kounellis is the subject of an ongoing retrospective at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the artist’s first North American retrospective in over three decades.

Download Art Basel Miami Beach 2022 Press Release PDF