LOS ANGELES, CA.- parrasch heijnen presents Marcia Hafif: Experience of Being, an exhibition of select works by the artist dating from 1962 – 1998. These paintings, which span the early to mid career of the artist’s nearly six-decade practice, include several works that have never before been shown in the United States.

Marcia Hafif’s (b.1929, Pomona, CA, d. 2018, Laguna Beach, CA) conceptual monochromes recreate emotional understanding through a highly methodical approach in which she related her body to her process, illuminating natural idiosyncrasies integral to the human touch. Hafif’s definition of “monochrome” connected to the subtle differences in hue, energy, and the patterns made by individual brushstrokes, generating a vibrating surface. The artist's paintings are both meditative and personal. The pleasure Hafif derived from her work was rooted in an uncertain journey towards the finished product: an act of unveiling a painting and its nature.

In his 1994 museum catalogue essay for Marcia Hafif, From the Inventory, French critic Jean-Charles Massera illuminated an early but pivotal moment in the artist’s awareness of process. Observing how she removed context from experience to exhibit “its intrinsic qualities, out of place”, he described: “In 1970 Marcia Hafif recorded vibrations as she heard them on a Pacific Ocean beach, and presented this acoustic sample in the antiseptic space of a gallery at an exhibition: E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology) at the University of Southern California… This sound work would not be repeated, but its principle seems to have guided Marcia Hafif’s pictorial development since 1972.” (1). This principle of distillation, of isolating and pointing out a color negating its background noise, of making work that is of a place through one detail expanded, was an axiom of Hafif’s practice.

Attuned to chromatic variance, to light’s specific relationship with a specific location, Hafif collected native pigments, often referencing them in the titles of her works. Included in this exhibition, Roman Painting III (1987) invokes the tonality and hue of a Roman cityscape, while French Painting: Rose Painting: May 17, 1993 (1993) is expressive of the colors of Lyon, France. These two iconic bodies of work, while parallel in process, are differentiated by a subtle violet hue, the latitude between Lyon and Rome. In Mass Tone, Prussian Blue (1974), the artist used dense, unmixed pigments to create unique surface effects, the result of their own material nature.

Hafif’s paintings are a constant reminder of objectness and materiality. Her “experience of being” was holistically attuned to each brushstroke she placed, each pigment she selected, and watching an object being created with her own hands from conception to materialization.

Marcia Hafif earned a B.A. from Pomona College (Claremont, CA) in 1951 and an M.F.A. from the University of California, Irvine (Irvine, CA) in 1971. Hafif’s works have been exhibited extensively internationally since 1964. Select solo exhibitions include: Sonnabend Gallery, New York, NY (1974, 1975, 1976, 1978,1981); Sonnabend Gallery, Paris, France (1975, 1976); La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, CA (1975); The Clocktower, New York, NY (1979); University of California at Irvine, CA (1983); P.S. 1, Long Island City, NY (1990); Fondation MAMCO et Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland (1999, 2001, 2010, 2014, 2019); FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France (2000); Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA (2015); Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA (2015); Fergus McCaffrey, New York, NY and Tokyo, Japan, (2016, 2018, 2021, 2022); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen and Kunsthaus Baselland, St. Gallen and Muttenz, Switzerland (2017); Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany (2018); Tate Modern Film, London, UK (2019); parrasch heijnen, Los Angeles, CA (2020); 5142 West Jefferson Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA (2022); Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY (2023); and MACRO Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome, Italy (2024). Select group exhibitions include: Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (1981, 2009); MOCA, Los Angeles, CA (1999, 2010); Art Institute of Chicago, IL (2011); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2014), MoMA PS1, New York, NY (2016); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2019); Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain (2021); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2021); Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany (2023); and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (2024).

Hafif’s work is held in multiple permanent museum collections including: Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (Chicago, IL); MOCA (Los Angeles, CA); Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden); MAMCO et Musée d'art moderne et contemporain; Geneva, Switzerland); Buffalo AKG Art Museum (Buffalo, NY); Laguna Art Museum (Laguna Beach, CA); FRAC Bourgogne (Dijon, France); Kunsthaus Aarau (Aarau, Switzerland); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (St. Gallen, Switzerland); and Lenbachhaus (Munich, Germany).

Marcia Hafif: Experience of Being will be on view at parrasch heijnen, 1326 S. Boyle Avenue, Los Angeles from February 21 - April 4, 2026. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, February 21, from 5-7 p. Gallery staff are available to guide you through our exhibitions virtually via Zoom upon request. For more information, please contact the gallery at +1 (323) 943-9373 or info@parraschheijnen.com.



(1) Jean-Charles Massera’s essay (Your Attention Please), 1994 exhibition catalogue, Marcia Hafif, From the Inventory, Kunsthalle Barmen, Wuppertal, Germany.

(2) Hafif, Marcia, Beginning Again, Artforum, Sept. 1978.