Overview
More than a simple contemplation of art, Sturtevant’s work aims to question and alter our attitude towards it. The presentation of her 20 drawings is also the opportunity to, retrospectively, reflect upon the elements of the New York art scene from which her uncompromising philosophy bears its origins.
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is delighted to present, in its new exhibition space on the second floor of the Marais gallery, a rare ensemble of 20 works on paper by Sturtevant, issued from the 2015 exhibition Drawing Double Reversal. This large retrospective, organized conjointly and on view successively at the MMK (Frankfurt), the Albertina (Vienna) and the Nationalgalerie’s Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin), gathered and presented for the first time a rich and previously unseen group of more than a hundred original drawings by the artist.
Sturtevant has bestowed a particular importance to drawing throughout her career. The works presented at the gallery—completed between 1964 and 1994—mirror the evolution of the first 30 years of her entire oeuvre. The works highlight this as early as 1965-1966, notably with the “Composite Drawings," rooting the conceptual work within the sharp and radical nature of her artistic thought process.
More than a simple contemplation of art, Sturtevant’s work aims to question and alter our attitude towards it. The presentation of her 20 drawings is also the opportunity to, retrospectively, reflect upon the elements of the New York art scene from which her uncompromising philosophy bears its origins.
Sturtevant (who died in 2014) lived and worked in Paris as of the 1990s. In 2010, her work was featured in a significant exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. The following year, she received the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the 54th Venice Biennale. In 2012, the exhibition Image Over Image was presented at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Kunsthalle in Zurich. The Serpentine Gallery in London devoted an exhibition to her work in 2013. In 2014, the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, the Albertina in Vienna, as well as the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin presented Sturtevant, Drawing Double Reversal, which brought together for the first time a unique ensemble of drawings produced throughout her career. That same year, the MoMA in New York inaugurated Sturtevant’s first major American retrospective, which was then shown in 2015 at the MOCA in Los Angeles.
