Pierre Soulages: A CenturyExhibitions
Pierre Soulages: A Century
Lévy Gorvy is pleased to announce Pierre Soulages: A Century, an exhibition celebrating the 100th birthday of France’s foremost living artist through a presentation of works spanning his career from the 1950s to today. On view from September 5 through October 26, 2019, this focused survey explores the artist’s enduring role in the dialogue between European and American painting and invites viewers to consider the impact of a practice that has injected profound poetry into radical abstraction through its adherence to a single material: black paint.
Filling all three floors of Lévy Gorvy’s landmark building at 909 Madison Avenue, Pierre Soulages: A Century is a prelude to Homage to Soulages, the artist’s solo exhibition at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, opening in December 2019. Curated by the late Pierre Encrevé, art historian and author of the Soulages catalogue raisonné, and Alfred Pacquement, the Honorary General Curator and former Director of the Centre Pompidou, the Louvre exhibition marks one of the very few times in the revered institution’s history that the Salon Carré has been entirely devoted to the presentation of work by a single living artist—an unparalleled honor.
Bringing together seminal paintings from the 1950s and 1960s that were either first exhibited in America or now reside in major American collections, the exhibition charts Soulages’s sustained investigation of abstraction — “a poetic experience,” he once wrote, that “signifies the world by transfiguring it”— from his early inspired encounters with the New York School to his continued innovations today. Also on view will be exceptional examples from Soulages’s Outrenoir series initiated in 1979. Translating to “beyond black,” outrenoir describes works in which dense layers of pigment record subtle shifts in ambient light. Thus incorporating darkness and radiance, each canvas invites the viewer to actively ponder the dynamics of repetition and change that structure Soulages’s oeuvre. “Outrenoir is not an optical phenomenon,” the artist has said. “It’s a mental state that you reach when you look deep into it, it’s beyond black.”
Pierre Soulages: A Century at Lévy Gorvy will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with new essays by Alfred Pacquement and American art critic Brooks Adams.
Selected Works
Video
An Interview with Pierre Soulages, 2019
November 19, 2019
Pierre Soulages is interviewed by Elizabeth Quin for the TV program "28 minutes" on Arte, ahead of his 2019 solo exhibition at the Louvre, and following his recent exhibition at Lévy Gorvy.
Publications
Selected Press
La Dépêche du Midi | Pourquoi vous ne verrez pas ce tableau au Louvre
December 8, 2019
Artforum | Pierre Soulages at Lévy Gorvy New York
December 3, 2019
The New York Times | Black Is Still the Only Color for Pierre Soulages
November 29, 2019
Hyperallergic | Pierre Soulages, Extreme Painter at 100
October 22, 2019
France TV Info | Exposition : New-York célèbre aussi le centenaire de Pierre Soulages
October 10, 2019
France 3 | Pierre Soulages, de l’outrenoir au prix du rayonnement français
October 10, 2019
New York Times | New York Galleries: What to See Right Now
October 10, 2019
Gallery Travels | Pierre Soulages at Lévy Gorvy
October 4, 2019
Artribune | Quasi cent’anni con Pierre Soulages. A New York
October 1, 2019
Thailand Tatler | 'Painter Of Black' Exhibition Opens In New York
September 19, 2019
Blake Qube | PIERRE SOULAGE – A CENTURY“ AT LEVY GORVY GALLERY
September 19, 2019
Le Figaro.fr | Avant le Louvre, Pierre Soulages célébré à New York pour ses 100 ans
September 19, 2019
Art Daily | Lévy Gorvy exhibits new and historic works by French master in his centenary year
September 9, 2019
Art Forum | PLAYFUL SLASH EROTIC
September 9, 2019
Christie's | Pierre Soulages: Beyond black
September 6, 2019
Asia Tatler | 'Painter Of Black' Exhibition Opens In New York
September 6, 2019
State of the Arts NYC | Centennial Celebration of Pierre Soulages
September 6, 2019
La Croix | Avant le Louvre, Soulages célébré à New York, terre d'adoption
September 6, 2019
Le Petit Journal | Grande exposition Pierre Soulages à la galerie Levy Gorvy à New York
September 6, 2019
Le Figaro.fr | Avant le Louvre, Pierre Soulages célébré à New York pour ses 100 ans
September 6, 2019
Yahoo | 'Painter of black' exhibition opens in New York
September 6, 2019
Artnet | Pierre Soulages Will Become the Latest Living Artist to Show at the Louvre This December—Just in Time for His 100th Birthday
September 6, 2019