NEW YORK, NY.- Faurschou announced the opening of three major exhibitions this fall, featuring works by Zachary Armstrong, Curtis Barnes Sr., and Robert Rauschenberg. The shows are on view from September 10, 2022 through January 29, 2023.
“This time we set out to explore flickers of American art, which continues to inspire us. Three different artistic viewpoints across culture and generations, each of them inviting us into their rich and moving practices, unique stories and place in American culture and history,” says Jens Faurschou, Founder of Faurschou.
The upcoming shows mark the third round of exhibitions in Faurschou’s Greenpoint galleries, which opened in 2019. On view are three solo exhibitions: Robert Rauschenberg’s exhibition features iconic paintings and a sculpture spanning the artist’s lifelong practice; Zachary Armstrong presents large-scale encaustic paintings, the largest the artist has created to date; and the late Dayton, Ohio-based painter Curtis Barnes Sr. is showing for the first time in New York, with a selection of portraits and self-studies spanning over 40 years.
Zachary Armstrong: Twelve Animals
September 10, 2022 - January 29, 2023
Twelve Animals presents a new series of large-scale wax paintings of animals by Dayton, Ohio based artist Zachary Armstrong (b. 1984). In the series, Armstrong emphasizes the universal, iconic quality of animals as well as their individual personalities and idiosyncrasies. Sometimes picturesque like a postcard or iconic like an advertisement, at other times the paintings self-consciously contend with the weight of symbolic representation. The method of layering encaustics and adjoining canvases together for extra fields of depth allows Armstrong to build up a textured surface where figures seem to float free from other elements of the paintings.
Merging imagery across high and low culture as well as time and place, Armstrong’s Twelve Animals are both playful and weighty. The animal portraits look at us as we look at them, expanding how visual cultures can be reworked to form an encompassing experience with emotional fluctuations. Together, they offer new perspectives on iconic animal forms while paying homage to the meanings that have accumulated over centuries.
Curtis Barnes Sr.: We Wear the Mask
September 10, 2022 - January 29, 2023
We Wear the Mask presents paintings by Curtis Barnes Sr. in New York for the first time. Barnes (1935-2019) spent most of his life as a key figure in the artistic community of Dayton, Ohio, producing a rich body of work that drew on the liberatory frameworks of post-colonial thinkers, free improvisation of jazz music, and enduring friendships and mentorships.
Taking its title from an 1895 poem of the same name by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask explores the interplay between face and mask in Barnes’ works. For Barnes, the mask as ritual object, image, and emblem of African culture became an effective expression of the African American spirit. By painting African masks into his portraits, Barnes reconnected the masks with the cultural history of Black faces, reclaiming control over representations of his culture and experience. As the artist expressed it, with the mask he could “hold on to the Africanness of the image.”
Comprising a selection of Barnes’ portraits and self-studies, We Wear the Mask introduces Barnes as an experimental colorist admired by his students for limited yet powerful palettes. The yellows, blues, and reds in his subjects’ faces speak to the lyricism and freewheeling embrace of abstraction found in Barnes’ work. His mask-like portraits reveal subjects close to the artist who he represented vulnerably and honestly. In these paintings, Barnes opens our eyes to the structures that we find ourselves in, freeing ourselves from the masks behind which we dream, cry and smile.
Robert Rauschenberg: A Subjective View
September 10, 2022 - January 29, 2023
This exhibition brings together a range of works by the American artist, Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), spanning from the artist’s early Combines to later silkscreen paintings, works on metal, and sculpture. Drawn exclusively from Faurschou Collection, Rauschenberg: A Subjective View showcases the grand cadence of Rauschenberg’s art, paying tribute to the life and work of the artist who worked freely, openly, and generously with various media, images, history, and material throughout his lifelong and ever-innovative practice.
Rauschenberg looked for beauty in the small details of everyday life; he had an excellent feeling for composing picture surfaces with a strong visual rhythm using elements that are repeated or juxtaposed, and objects that take on a symbolic character. Together, the works in the exhibition evoke charged sensations from disparate points in Rauschenberg’s practice.
“Robert Rauschenberg holds a special place in our collection,” says Faurschou founder Jens Faurschou. “Having collected his works for over 30 years, his art continues to intrigue us with its timeless relevance and beauty. We had the pleasure to meet with Rauschenberg several times over the years and presented his art to the Chinese audience when we opened Faurschou Beijing in 2007 with the exhibition Three Decades. To exhibit Rauschenberg at Faurschou New York is an utmost privilege. I hope that our audiences will leave the exhibition with admiration for this fantastic artist.”
