Yoko Matsumoto
Edom Becomes Wilderness
Yoko Matsumoto graduated from the oil painting department at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts in 1959; she began making abstract paintings around 1960 when she first encountered Liquitex acrylic in 1967 while on residency in New York City. At the end of the 1960s, she discovered painters such as Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, and Clyfford Still, who greatly influenced her pictorial work.
After returning to Japan in 1970, she dedicated the next 25 years to the study of pink, formulating her pigment mixed with chalk to maximize light refraction. Most of her paintings are titled after biblical verse evoking access to the immaterial, spiritual and metaphysical.
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Yoko Matsumoto graduated from the oil painting department at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts in 1959; she began making abstract paintings around 1960 when she first encountered Liquitex acrylic in 1967 while on residency in New York City. At the end of the 1960s, she discovered painters such as Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, and Clyfford Still, who greatly influenced her pictorial work.
After returning to Japan in 1970, she dedicated the next 25 years to the study of pink, formulating her pigment mixed with chalk to maximize light refraction. Most of her paintings are titled after biblical verse evoking access to the immaterial, spiritual and metaphysical.
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Painter Was Called Outlaw
Curated by Wills Baker
Organized in collaboration with Kyoko Sato
WhiteBox Harlem
213 E 121st St
New York, NY
February 1–29, 2020
WhiteBox Harlem is pleased to present Painter Was Called Outlaw, curated by Wills Baker. The exhibition introduces four Japanese artists, the early 20th-century expressionist painter Toshiyuki Hasekawa (1891–1940), inter-war painters Shunsuke Matsumoto (1912–1948), and Saburō Asō (1913–2000) along with postmodern paintings and sculptures by Shin Miyazaki (1922–2018).
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Organized in collaboration with Kyoko Sato
WhiteBox Harlem
213 E 121st St
New York, NY
February 1–29, 2020
WhiteBox Harlem is pleased to present Painter Was Called Outlaw, curated by Wills Baker. The exhibition introduces four Japanese artists, the early 20th-century expressionist painter Toshiyuki Hasekawa (1891–1940), inter-war painters Shunsuke Matsumoto (1912–1948), and Saburō Asō (1913–2000) along with postmodern paintings and sculptures by Shin Miyazaki (1922–2018).
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The Glady Day
Works by Jasper Spicero
Film by Jasper Spicero and Wills Baker
Curated by Wills Baker and Tiffany Zabludowicz
Times Square Space
New York, NY
June 18–September 1, 2018
Times Square Space presents a new film by Jasper Spicero, The Glady Day, made in collaboration with Wills Baker, during the artist's three-month residency at TSS from March to June, 2018. The film appears in the same space it was made and in the context of its set. In concert with it are sculptures by the artist created over the past three years. The exhibition is curated by Wills Baker and Tiffany Zabludowicz. Spicero, was born in 1990 in South Dakota, he lives and works in Brooklyn and has had exhibitions at museums and galleries around the world, including solo exhibitions at Johann Berrgren Galery, Malmo, SW, New Galerie, Paris, FR, and Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, FR.
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Film by Jasper Spicero and Wills Baker
Curated by Wills Baker and Tiffany Zabludowicz
Times Square Space
New York, NY
June 18–September 1, 2018
Times Square Space presents a new film by Jasper Spicero, The Glady Day, made in collaboration with Wills Baker, during the artist's three-month residency at TSS from March to June, 2018. The film appears in the same space it was made and in the context of its set. In concert with it are sculptures by the artist created over the past three years. The exhibition is curated by Wills Baker and Tiffany Zabludowicz. Spicero, was born in 1990 in South Dakota, he lives and works in Brooklyn and has had exhibitions at museums and galleries around the world, including solo exhibitions at Johann Berrgren Galery, Malmo, SW, New Galerie, Paris, FR, and Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, FR.
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Antifaratu
Galeria Mascota
Mexico City, Mexico
October, 2017.
Galeria Mascota is pleased to present Antifaratu an exhibition curated by Wills Baker. Featuring works by David Douard (b.1983), Matthew Kenny (b.1979), Bradford Kessler (b.1983), The estate of Tony Morgan (b. 1938 -2004) and Zoe Barcza (b.1984).
The horror genre operates off of one principle alone: fear for pleasure. Meet Antifa2, an amalgamation of divine parts, (absentis corporis) an absent body invoked for devotion, Antifa2 prowls the night, she is a transgender, leftist whore of spectacle, an apparition come to uproot tradition and posses the most hard-hearted conservatives with desire. She flies, he screams, a murderous wretch begging to be seen.
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Mexico City, Mexico
October, 2017.
Galeria Mascota is pleased to present Antifaratu an exhibition curated by Wills Baker. Featuring works by David Douard (b.1983), Matthew Kenny (b.1979), Bradford Kessler (b.1983), The estate of Tony Morgan (b. 1938 -2004) and Zoe Barcza (b.1984).
The horror genre operates off of one principle alone: fear for pleasure. Meet Antifa2, an amalgamation of divine parts, (absentis corporis) an absent body invoked for devotion, Antifa2 prowls the night, she is a transgender, leftist whore of spectacle, an apparition come to uproot tradition and posses the most hard-hearted conservatives with desire. She flies, he screams, a murderous wretch begging to be seen.
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Detour
Bruno Gironcoli, Eva Hesse, Tobias Pils
Curated by Wills Baker
Greenspon Gallery
New York, NY
March 5–April 23, 2016
Algus Greenspon is pleased to present Detour, an exhibition of works by Bruno Gironcoli, Eva Hesse and Tobias Pils, curated by Wills Baker.
Though his career spanned more than five decades, this will be the first exhibition of Austrian sculptor Bruno Gironcoli's work in the United States. In the 1950s, Gironcoli trained as a goldsmith in Innsbruck and then the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna. Proceeding from a series of compulsive pencil drawings he completed of his wife Christine in 1964, Gironcoli would make his first attempts to three-dimensionally render the human form. This prompted his series of polyester objects; "I attribute great value to this struggle with the human figure, I try to grasp an image of man in paraphrases, in detours, in the psychologization of the environment since representation yields too little for me." His insistence on psychologically internalizing the body with an intent to have it inspire abstract, abbreviated forms, finds parallel in the post-minimalist strides Eva Hesse was taking at the very same time.
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Curated by Wills Baker
Greenspon Gallery
New York, NY
March 5–April 23, 2016
Algus Greenspon is pleased to present Detour, an exhibition of works by Bruno Gironcoli, Eva Hesse and Tobias Pils, curated by Wills Baker.
Though his career spanned more than five decades, this will be the first exhibition of Austrian sculptor Bruno Gironcoli's work in the United States. In the 1950s, Gironcoli trained as a goldsmith in Innsbruck and then the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna. Proceeding from a series of compulsive pencil drawings he completed of his wife Christine in 1964, Gironcoli would make his first attempts to three-dimensionally render the human form. This prompted his series of polyester objects; "I attribute great value to this struggle with the human figure, I try to grasp an image of man in paraphrases, in detours, in the psychologization of the environment since representation yields too little for me." His insistence on psychologically internalizing the body with an intent to have it inspire abstract, abbreviated forms, finds parallel in the post-minimalist strides Eva Hesse was taking at the very same time.
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Shall We Sit, Stand or Kneel?
Hannah Levy and Michael Simpson
Curated by Wills Baker
Marlborough Gallery
New York, NY
October 27–December 3, 2016
When an infant reacts to the entry and exit of an adult presence, they may feel a sense of loss and longing or maybe pandemonium and disharmony, for instance, when a mother leaves her child. How is this presence of power generated when the actor is missing? How do our institutional systems in religion or the public sphere exert in the absence of physical authority? Is not the pulpit at once the same device as the podium? In the Western Christian tradition, clerical objects and tools make available and amplify the holy spirit—drink from a cup, sit on the prayer bench, kneel before the pew. The way these objects dictate access to divinity reiterates and interprets the invisible and abstract force of power itself. Who is at the mercy of the rhythm of control; is it in our eyes our ears or our bodies? When we understand what radiates from within, even an obsession, one can sit and find the soul and then look from the perspective of collectively or oneness. The works reveal power's mutability in separation —here the priest is missing—the viewer sits and waits how much longer until salvation?
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Curated by Wills Baker
Marlborough Gallery
New York, NY
October 27–December 3, 2016
When an infant reacts to the entry and exit of an adult presence, they may feel a sense of loss and longing or maybe pandemonium and disharmony, for instance, when a mother leaves her child. How is this presence of power generated when the actor is missing? How do our institutional systems in religion or the public sphere exert in the absence of physical authority? Is not the pulpit at once the same device as the podium? In the Western Christian tradition, clerical objects and tools make available and amplify the holy spirit—drink from a cup, sit on the prayer bench, kneel before the pew. The way these objects dictate access to divinity reiterates and interprets the invisible and abstract force of power itself. Who is at the mercy of the rhythm of control; is it in our eyes our ears or our bodies? When we understand what radiates from within, even an obsession, one can sit and find the soul and then look from the perspective of collectively or oneness. The works reveal power's mutability in separation —here the priest is missing—the viewer sits and waits how much longer until salvation?
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Amor Fati
Curated by Wills Baker and Anna Erickson
Pioneer Works
Brooklyn, NY
October 2017
Pioneer Works is pleased to present Amor Fati, a group exhibition curated by Wills Baker and Anna Erickson.
In Amor Fati, we bring together works from artists whose identity and practice shape an immersive look into Dionysian constructions. The works within this exhibition expose the many iterations of irrational human folly, destructive debauchery, primal intuition, ecstatic revelry, reckless exploit, and sacrifice. Dionysus, with his celebration of everything that escapes human reason, is the mythological base vessel distorting the rational world. In dialogue with one another, the works display a modern paganism, revealing a cult of worship as an answer to the inevitable fall of the artist.
Participating artists include David Armstrong, Maxime Ballesteros, Benjamin Degen, Zhivago Duncan, Richard Dupont, Martin Eder, Eloise Fornieles, Douglas Gordon, Loris Greaud, Nir Hod, Michael Joo, Kika Karadi, John Miserendino, Yoko Ono, Angel Otero, Nicolas Provost, Matthew Stone, Stephen Tashijan, Mickalene Thomas, Andy Warhol, Graham Wilson, and Nick van Woert.
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Pioneer Works
Brooklyn, NY
October 2017
Pioneer Works is pleased to present Amor Fati, a group exhibition curated by Wills Baker and Anna Erickson.
In Amor Fati, we bring together works from artists whose identity and practice shape an immersive look into Dionysian constructions. The works within this exhibition expose the many iterations of irrational human folly, destructive debauchery, primal intuition, ecstatic revelry, reckless exploit, and sacrifice. Dionysus, with his celebration of everything that escapes human reason, is the mythological base vessel distorting the rational world. In dialogue with one another, the works display a modern paganism, revealing a cult of worship as an answer to the inevitable fall of the artist.
Participating artists include David Armstrong, Maxime Ballesteros, Benjamin Degen, Zhivago Duncan, Richard Dupont, Martin Eder, Eloise Fornieles, Douglas Gordon, Loris Greaud, Nir Hod, Michael Joo, Kika Karadi, John Miserendino, Yoko Ono, Angel Otero, Nicolas Provost, Matthew Stone, Stephen Tashijan, Mickalene Thomas, Andy Warhol, Graham Wilson, and Nick van Woert.
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Comfort Zones
Lucas Zallmann
Curated by Wills Baker
57 Orchard Street
New York, NY
November 9–December 10, 2013
For his debut New York exhibition, Comfort Zones, Austrian artist Lucas Zallmann presents a sculptural installation, film, and works on paper curated by Wills Baker.
The exhibition interrogates themes of psychological habit, knowledge-preservation, and New York City's Wall Street. Comfort Zones will inaugurate 57 Orchard Street, previously home to the studio of Richard Hambleton.
Born and raised in Austria, Zallmann is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, where he was the protégé of Gelitin co-founder Florian Reither. Zallmann's work interrogates contemporary informational and financial systems, inspired by a degree in economics, which has evolved into a line of artistic inquiry Zallmann calls the "embodiment of knowledge." Zallmann defines this "embodiment" as a society's physical absorption of cultural myths into a central false "common" knowledge, which, over time, becomes "fact." His work responds to this act of "knowing" as an absorbent and intuitive emotional process.
From drawings described as snapshots of human consciousness entitled "mindscapes" to free-hand text abstractions made with sulfur and neon adorned fridge installations -- Zallmann explores the nature of comfort and assumption and the banal mechanics of daily life—the systematic, the familiar and routine. In drawing attention to these linear social grids and constructions, he lifts the veil of western social engineering, which keeps conventions of knowing as the assumption in place.
Curated by Wills Baker
57 Orchard Street
New York, NY
November 9–December 10, 2013
For his debut New York exhibition, Comfort Zones, Austrian artist Lucas Zallmann presents a sculptural installation, film, and works on paper curated by Wills Baker.
The exhibition interrogates themes of psychological habit, knowledge-preservation, and New York City's Wall Street. Comfort Zones will inaugurate 57 Orchard Street, previously home to the studio of Richard Hambleton.
Born and raised in Austria, Zallmann is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, where he was the protégé of Gelitin co-founder Florian Reither. Zallmann's work interrogates contemporary informational and financial systems, inspired by a degree in economics, which has evolved into a line of artistic inquiry Zallmann calls the "embodiment of knowledge." Zallmann defines this "embodiment" as a society's physical absorption of cultural myths into a central false "common" knowledge, which, over time, becomes "fact." His work responds to this act of "knowing" as an absorbent and intuitive emotional process.
From drawings described as snapshots of human consciousness entitled "mindscapes" to free-hand text abstractions made with sulfur and neon adorned fridge installations -- Zallmann explores the nature of comfort and assumption and the banal mechanics of daily life—the systematic, the familiar and routine. In drawing attention to these linear social grids and constructions, he lifts the veil of western social engineering, which keeps conventions of knowing as the assumption in place.