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Art Basel 2021

For our first in person fair in almost two years, Petzel is excited to present a selection of works by artists who have long been pillars of the gallery’s program as well as those who have recently joined the gallery’s roster. In the spirit of welcoming our viewers back to the fair and in celebration of the 50th edition of Art Basel, Petzel is featuring new works by Ross Bleckner, Cosima von Bonin, Joe Bradley, Hanne Darboven, Derek Fordjour, Wade Guyton, Stefanie Heinze, Charline von Heyl, Sean Landers, Maria Lassnig, Allan McCollum, Rodney McMillian, Sarah Morris, Jorge Pardo, Joyce Pensato, Stephen Prina, Seth Price, Jon Pylypchuk, Pieter Schoolwerth, Dana Schutz, Emily Mae Smith, Hiroki Tsukuda, Nicola Tyson, Corinne Wasmuht, Xie Nanxing, and Heimo Zobernig. At the heart of the booth, a presentation of works by the late Joyce Pensato will be on display. Her iconic, gestural style is exemplified in the three charcoal drawings and her 1994 Untitled (Donald), while the bronze edition, Lisa, shows the intense emotion of Pensato’s practice, often described as a balancing act between pure elation and derangement.

The works available here will also be on view at Petzel’s booth at Art Basel, Booth M12.

Showing for the first time with Petzel at Art Basel will be artists Joe Bradley, Emily Mae Smith, Pieter Schoolwerth, and Xie Nanxing. Employing both geometric and organic forms, Joe Bradley engages in a more minimalist painting tradition with monochrome swaths of color. He creates his improvisational canvases unprimed and unstretched on his studio floor, leading his finished paintings to bear traces of the artistic process they underwent. Speaking through a language of signs and symbols, Emily Mae Smith’s work addresses timely subjects including gender, class, and violence. Her broomstick figure functions as a visual tool to communicate stories and ideas for subjectivities long absent in the history of art, specifically the feminist perspective. Derek Fordjour develops his detailed canvases through a length process of layering materials often found in everyday life. Delving into the allegorical and social constructs that assign power and privilege, Conjurer uses the imagery of the magician to allude to the ideas of protection, social ambition, and power.

Slide-1-(OLD)

Derek Fordjour, Conjurer

Derek Fordjour

Conjurer

2021

Acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, oil pastel and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas

85 x 65 inches

215.9 x 165.1 cm

Xie Nanxing presents a painting from his series ‘The Dwarf’s Refrain’. Using illustrations of dwarfs made by his father, he distorts the source material to create a group of paintings wide-ranging in their formal experimentation while remaining deeply rooted in his own lived experience. Pieter Schoolwerth debuts his “Rigged” series with Diamond Residence (Rigged #3). In this body of work he continues working with 3D modeling and exploring the idea of authorship and appropriation he began in his ‘Model as Painting’ and ‘Sims 4’ series.

At Art Basel 2021, Petzel Gallery is pleased to present a grouping of works by the late Joyce Pensato. The selection includes a “Donald Duck” painting from 1994 and three charcoal and pastel works on paper from 2015 of the same character, all references to the famous cartoon personality created by The Walt Disney Company in the mid 1930’s. On view as well will be one of the artist’s bronze editions from 2020 of the character “Lisa” from the sitcom series The Simpsons, whose animated family enticed the artist since the episode’s first airing in 1989.

Joyce Pensato, In Memoriam, 1941–2019

Joyce Pensato

In Memoriam, 1941–2019

Booth Rendering

Joyce Pensato, Sammy - 2

Joyce Pensato

Sammy - 2

2015

Charcoal and pastel on paper

30 x 22 inches

76.2 x 55.9 cm