NEW YORK, NY.- Pace/MacGill Gallery announced its move to Pace Gallerys new headquarters at 540 West 25th Street, where it will join its longtime partners.
Thirty-six years after Pace/MacGills founding, we are finally under one roof, said Marc Glimcher, President of Pace Gallery. We welcome Pace/MacGill and its team to our flagship building, where we will continue to build on our long and successful relationship.
The transition to 540 West 25th Street will be overseen by Peter MacGill, President of Pace/MacGill, who founded the gallery with partners Arne Glimcher and Dick Solomon in 1983. MacGill will remain closely involved to oversee special projects, while day-to-day operations of the gallery will be overseen by Lauren Panzo, Kimberly Jones, and Margaret Kelly.
After nearly four decades on 57th Street, the move to Chelsea provides a natural time for a transition and a moment to reflect on how photography has evolved over this time. The extraordinary building that is 540 West 25th Street is the evolution of the gallery experience. Pace/MacGill will fit into this space seamlessly and new audiences will experience the work of photographers alongside painting, sculpture and live events, said MacGill.
MacGill recently entered into a partnership with Radical Medias Chairman and CEO, Jon Kamen, to develop online streaming content that tells the story of photography.
For the public opening of 540 West 25th Street on Saturday, September 14, 2019, Pace/MacGill will present Peter Hujar: Master Class. Featuring a selection of Hujars black-and-white portraits acquired by Richard Avedon in the 1970s, the exhibition examines the photographers idiomatic approach to portraiture that treated each photograph as a stand-alone object, capable of evoking complex emotions and expressions. The influence of Avedons acclaimed Master Class, a weekly seminar taught by Avedon and art director Marvin Israel at Avedons New York City studio and in which Hujar was enrolled in 1967, will also be examined through scholarly research. The Master Class included visiting speakers such as Diane Arbus and Lucas Samaras, and opened doors for a number of young photographers.
Avedon and Hujar remained friends following the workshops close and, over time, Avedon acquired the eight superb prints on view, each of which deftly captures Hujars avant-garde circle with penetrating sensitivity and psychological depth. The exhibition will also include Hujars four-part work made during the Master Class, Nude Self-Portrait Series #1, #2, #3, #4, 1967.
Peter Hujar (19341987) was born in New Jersey and moved to Manhattan as a teenager. He studied at the High School of Art and Design and shortly thereafter worked as a photographers assistant. Throughout the 1960s, Hujar served as an apprentice for a number of commercial photographers and did a large amount of fashion work for Harpers Bazaar. He was a leading figure in the group of artists, musicians, writers, and performers at the forefront of downtown New Yorks cultural scene in the 1970s and early 80s, and died of AIDS at the age of 53, leaving behind a complex and profound body of work. His photographs have been the subject of solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe, and are held in the permanent collections of institutions worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Morgan Library and Museum, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Tate Modern, London.
Selected publications include the first and only monograph made during Hujars lifetime, Portraits in Life and Death (Da Capo Press, 1976), and the posthumous works: Peter Hujar (Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University, 1990), Peter Hujar: A Retrospective (Scalo Publishers, 1994), Animals and Nudes (Twin Palms Publishers, 2002), Animals (BukAmerica, 2006), and Peter Hujar: Speed of Life (Aperture 2017).