Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present Julian Lethbridge / Carl Andre, a two-person exhibition featuring recent work by both artists. The show will be on view at Berggruen Gallery, East Hampton from July 9 through August 8, 2021.
Julian Lethbridge’s paintings expand his exploration into the medium’s limits of hue, pattern, and tactility. The artist begins by creating a grid for his canvases—a preliminary guide that informs the initial composition. Lethbridge moves on to build layer upon layer of oil paint, often emphasizing his undulating patterns with pigment sticks. Finally, the artist utilizes thin metal bands to incise the impasto he has formed. Both additive and subtractive, the paintings have surprising optical depths and a unique rhythmic sensation. The result is methodical and refined, yet impulsive and lyrical.
Carl Andre helped define the Conceptual and Minimalist art movements of the late 20th century. Andre’s work on view offers unique insight into the artist’s smaller-scale makings. His arrangements remain elementary, featuring factory-cut wood, Styrofoam, aluminum, and steel. The modular compositions are not symbolic or figurative, but rather real objects as honest as the surrounding gallery floors or walls. This raw simplicity is achieved through focus on the basic properties of matter—form, weight, and structure. The sculptures included in the exhibition, each standing below six inches tall, offer a more intimate and visceral entry into the artist’s oeuvre.
Altogether, Julian Lethbridge / Carl Andre presents the recent work of two contemporary artists who both lean on mathematics and geometry to invent abstract, minimalist makings. Andre’s rudimentary sculptures and Lethbridge’s monochrome paintings complement one another—mutually revealing the simple yet profound truths of shape, color, and form.
Julian Lethbridge was born in Sri Lanka in 1947 and moved to England shortly thereafter. The artist would go onto study at Westchester College and Cambridge University (1960-1969). He presented his first exhibition of paintings and drawings in 1988 and continued to have one-person shows across thew country, from New York City to San Francisco. Today, Lethbridge’s work has been exhibited globally and can be found in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Tate Gallery, London; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; and The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. The artist currently lives and works in New York.
Carl Andre was born in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1935. Andre studied at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts from 1951 to 1953, where he was introduced to Hollis Frampton and Frank Stella—two artist that would become influential to Andre’s career. Andre has had many significant retrospectives of his work, including those held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas; and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, England. His work is in the public collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Tate Gallery, London, among others. Andre lives and works in New York, NY.
Julian Lethbridge / Carl Andre, July 9 – August 8, 2021. On view at 55 Main Street, East Hampton, NY 11937. Images and preview are available upon request. For all inquiries, please contact the gallery directly by email info@berggruen.com or by phone (415) 781-4629.
