Urs Fischer to curate Gagosian’s Booth at Frieze Masters 2024 that will pair sculptures by late American artist John Chamberlain (1927–2011) with furniture by Australian designer Marc Newson.
Fischer’s selection contrasts Chamberlain’s urge to reveal the physical configuration of manufactured items through their forcible reshaping with Newson’s technical precision, which belies the handmade nature of his work.
Edition of 10 + 4 AP © Marc Newson Photo: Karin Catt Courtesy the artist and Gagosian
Chamberlain shaped a distinctive aesthetic and technique early in his career, citing the time he spent on an aircraft carrier as a member of the US Navy in the mid-1940s as influential on his understanding of scale and perspective. By compressing metal forms, then welding elements together, he developed an innovative variant on three-dimensional collage that emphasizes mass and volume. Newson, for his part, designs and produces objects rooted in an ongoing experimentation with materials and processes, structure and technology. These elevated forms, which include items of furniture such as the iconic Lockheed Lounge (1988), reflect and extend a highly refined visual and tactile sensibility.
The presentation at Frieze Masters includes three late steel sculptures by Chamberlain—COLONELGARGLE (2008), ENTIRELYFEARLESS (2009), and STUFFEDWITHSURPRISE (2011)—and four pieces of furniture by Newson—Lockheed Lounge, Random Pak Chair (2006), Low Voronoi Shelf (2008), and Charcoal Glass Chair (2017). Seen in dialogue, each of the two groupings of works on view helps clarify the other, both communicating through the visual language of industry and their relationship to everyday functionality. Formally, the objects share a restricted color palette, while the fact that the majority were produced during the same roughly ten-year period introduces an additional parallel between their makers’ practices, one of which was still evolving as the other neared its end. Fischer has designed a bespoke printed tufted carpet for the booth, titled Medium, which further unifies the installation.
Fischer previously curated an exhibition of Chamberlain’s works at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado. In THE TIGHTER THEY’RE WOUND, THE HARDER THEY UNRAVEL (2023–24), he placed Chamberlain’s early and late sculptures in dialogue with each other, also presenting the artist’s foam sculptures and miniatures. For the accompanying publication, Fischer mischievously resisted Chamberlain’s stated preference for his works to be seen in isolation by juxtaposing photographs of them with those of other artists’ projects.
Edition of 3 + 2 AP © Marc Newson Photo: Rob McKeever Courtesy Gagosian
FRIEZE MASTERS 2024 John Chamberlain and Marc Newson Curated by Urs Fischer
October 9th–13th, 2024 Booth E01
On Friday, October 11th, at 9:30am, Fischer will sign copies of his new book Monumental Sculpture and converse with curator and critic Róisín Tapponi at Sadie Coles HQ, 62 Kingly Street, London.
About the artist
John Chamberlain was born in Rochester, Indiana, in 1927, and died in New York in 2011. Collections include Tate, London; Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Dia Art Foundation, NY; Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX; Menil Collection, Houston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Museo Jumex, Mexico City. Exhibitions include Sculpture, An Extended Exhibition, Dia Art Foundation, New York (1982–85); Sculpture 1954–1985, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1986); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany (1991); Sculpture, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (1996); Foam Sculptures (1966–79); Photographs (1989–2004), Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX (2005–06); American Tableau, Menil Collection, Houston (2009); It Ain’t Cheap, Dan Flavin Art Institute, Dia Bridgehampton, NY (2014); and Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2015). Chamberlain has been the subject of two retrospectives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1971 and 2012).
Marc Newson was born in 1963 in Sydney and lives and works in the United Kingdom. Collections include the Design Museum, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Solo exhibitions include Bucky: De la chimie au design, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (1995); Design Works, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney (2001); Design Museum, London (2004); Kelvin 40, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (2004); Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands (2004); and At Home, Philadelphia Museum of Art (2013). Newson holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sydney and the Royal College of Art, London, and in 2012, he was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
Urs Fischer was born in 1973 in Zurich and lives and works in Los Angeles. Collections include Fondation Carmignac, Paris; FRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Marseille, France; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels; Kunstmuseum Basel; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; Museo d’arte della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Exhibitions include Marguerite de Ponty, New Museum, New York (2009–10); Skinny Sunrise, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2012); Madame Fisscher, Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2013); YES, DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra, Greece (2013); Small Axe, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2013); Mon cher…, Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, France (2016); The Public & the Private, Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2017); The Lyrical and the Prosaic, Aïshti Foundation, Beirut (2019–20); Lovers, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2022); and PLAY, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2022).
