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JOHN WESLEY Untitled (Ducks)

JOHN WESLEY
Untitled (Ducks)
1983
Acrylic on paper
35 1/2 by 59 in. 90.2 by 149.9 cm.

CARL ANDRE Untitled

CARL ANDRE
Untitled
1959
Radial arm saw cut wood
3 5/8 by 10 1/4 by 3 1/2 in. 9.2 by 26 by 8.9 cm.

JOHN WESLEY Three Bulls and a Bed

JOHN WESLEY
Three Bulls and a Bed
1987
Acrylic on canvas
64 1/8 by 66 1/8 in. 162.9 by 168 cm.

JOHN WESLEY Revolting Dogs

JOHN WESLEY
Revolting Dogs
1978
Acrylic on paper
19 1/2 by 25 1/2 in. 49.5 by 64.8 cm.

JOHN WESLEY White Duck

JOHN WESLEY
White Duck
1981
Acrylic on paper
9 1/2 by 19 5/8 in. 24.1 by 49.8 cm.

Press Release

Mitchell-Innes & Nash is pleased to announce CARL ANDRE/JOHN WESLEY: Serial Forms on view in the Chelsea gallery from May 31 – July 14. The exhibition will include paintings and works on paper by John Wesley from the 1970s and 1980s and Carl Andre sculpture from the 1970s through the 1990s. Serial Forms juxtaposes works by these two artists that investigate repetition and modularity.

The exhibition poses a relationship of visual analogy between Wesley’s paintings and Andre’s sculpture, looking at how each artist uses systematic approaches to different materials and subject matter. Less than a decade apart in age, the two are affiliated with widely disparate movements in post-War art, namely Pop and Minimalism. While Wesley is known for brightly-colored, cartoon-like erotic narratives, Andre’s work is emphatically concrete, excised of any representation or narrative. The two nonetheless share a commitment to paring away all non-essential information to arrive at a final form.

In his introduction to John Wesley’s survey show at the Fondazione Prada, curator Germano Celant discussed Wesley’s exposure to Minimalism and its “universe of elementary forms…arising from reductive, geometric procedures that tended to reduce art to its primary and minimal materials and forms…” While Andre’s “primary materials” were lumber and copper, Wesley’s were images: humans, animals, landscapes reduced to flat, graphic shapes in a limited color palette.

Both artists have permanent installations at Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX. John Wesley has had numerous retrospectives including Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (travelled to Portikus, Frankfurt); PS1/MoMA, Harvard University Art Galleries at the Fogg Museum; and Fondazione Prada at the 2009 Venice Biennale. His work is in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Kunstmuseum, Basel. He is represented by Fredericks & Freiser, NY.

Carl Andre's work was included in the seminal 1966 exhibition “Primary Structures” at the Jewish Museum. He has been the subject of several retrospectives, most notably at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1970; the Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas, in 1978; the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, in 1978; the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, in 1987; the Haus Lange und Haus Esters, Krefeld; the Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, in 1996; and the Musée Cantini, Marseilles, in 1997. He lives in New York. He is represented by Paula Cooper Gallery, NY.