SUMMER 2023 EDITION
Meet the Artists ASPEN ART MUSEUM
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Charles Gaines Generously donated by the artist and Hauser & Wirth Since the 1970s, conceptual artist Charles Gaines has employed a variety of media in a dedicated exploration of systems. In the 1970s he began a series called “Walnut Tree Orchard”, for which he photographed trees, subsequently converting the forms into a numbered grid, then layering these silhouettes one on top of the other. Grids and trees are methods and motifs which have endured, and throughout his career he has created two main bodies of work: “Gridwork” and “Black Language”. Music has played a promi- nent role in his practice, again shaped by the use of systems; converting political manifestos into musical scores, he recasts the letters in the text into notes and rests, determined by a simple set of rules. In an interview in frieze in 2022, Harmony Holiday asked the artist if he is still suspicious of the imagination, as he once declared in a talk, and Gaines replied: “The thing I want people to consider when we talk about my work is that it hasn’t been produced by the imagination—even if you can still re- spond to it as you might any other work of art. I’m not saying that there’s no such thing as imagination or intuition or subjectivity, but I think they’re all constructs. Modernist art is built upon the myth of subjectivity: that it’s a uni- versal language which transcends local, cultural, social and political interests.” Gaines lives and works in Los Angeles, where he taught at CalArts for 30 years, until his recent retirement. He has exhibited extensively since the 1970s, published his writings, and is the recipient of numerous awards: in 2022 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 2019 received the 60th Edward MacDowell Medal. His work is held in key collections around the world including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC. In November of this year the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami will stage a major survey of Gaines’ work spanning 30 years from 1992 to 2022. Chase Hall Generously donated by the artist and David Kordansky Gallery Working across a variety of media including painting, sculpture, photography, video, audio and artists books, in recent years Chase Hall has come to prominence above all for his paintings and his own take on Black figuration. In a short film by Nowness Hall explains, “Blackness is not monolithic, so I am just me and my life so far is what I am trying to share”—and in particular he is con- cerned with presenting and exploring his own biraciality. The self-taught artist has very much forged his own path in terms of materi- als: he uses unprimed white cotton as his ground and combines coffee with paint. Brewing the coffee in a variety of ways and grinding the African beans to varying degrees of fineness, he is able to create a vast range of brown pigments, of different hues and textures. Regarding his choice of canvas, in an interview in 2022 in W Magazine with Emma Leigh Macdonald, he explains:
Opposite Korakrit
Arunanondchai. Courtesy: Kukje Gallery; photograph: Chunho An
Left Charles Gaines.
Courtesy: © Charles Gaines and Hauser & Wirth; photograph: Fredrik Nilsen Below Chase Hall. Courtesy: the artist; photograph: Grace Ahlbom
Online auction closes Saturday, August 5th, 12pm MT at sothebys. com/aspenartmuseum Live auction takes place Friday, August 4th at 8pm MT, at the ArtCrush Gala Phone and absentee bids accepted. For all enquiries, email bid@ aspenartmuseum.org No buyer’s premium! View and bid on works at sothebys.com/ aspenartmuseum
Visit the museum and view the ArtCrush Auction Exhibition July 26—August 3, 2023.
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