The new international art venture LGDR will inaugurate its New York City program on April 7, 2022, with the opening of three exhibitions spotlighting exceptional painters and sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries. Illuminating important contributions to the art historical canon, this trio of presentations will unfold across two locations on Manhattan’s Upper East Side—at the landmark Beaux-Arts building at 3 East 89th Street, which will in late 2022 become LGDR’s flagship, and at 909 Madison Avenue, the gallery’s temporary space.
At 89th street, LGDR will present Lisa Brice: Last Chance Salon, a solo exhibition of new works by the critically admired, London-based South African painter. Challenging and reinterpreting traditional approaches to the female nude as subject matter, and foregrounding the perspective of a female artist, Brice’s canvases propose an alternative to one of art history’s leading tropes. In the same location, LGDR will debut Matthew Krishanu: Undercurrents, a selection of new paintings in which the artist explores the intersection of personal boyhood memories and wider colonial history.
Simultaneously, LGDR will present the historical group exhibition Stage Fright at 909 Madison Avenue. Curated by acclaimed artist Rachel Harrison, this presentation will celebrate the physicality of 20th sculpture as embodied in key examples by Alina Szapocznikow, Marisol, Alberto Giacometti, and Marcel Duchamp, among others.
Together, the three exhibitions materialize LGDR’s core commitment to supporting visionary art practices that span movements and disciplines with its program at large.
Exhibition details ~ Installed in the historic 3 East 89th Street building that will soon become LGDR’s permanent headquarters, the solo exhibition Lisa Brice: Last Chance Salon features the artist’s poignant and provocative work. Her monumental four-panel paintings, freestanding screens and small-scale works on paper challenge how women have been traditionally portrayed. Brice revisits and revises modern masterpieces that have been shaped by the Western male perspective and, in turn, defined the conventional history of art. Rather than represent the female form as merely subject to the male gaze, Brice here depicts autonomous and self-possessed beings. For instance, she reimagines the bathers of Edgar Degas’s famous paintings of women rendered vulnerable by his palpable presence, by showing us nude figures who are instead looking at themselves, engaged in self-directed activities within moody interior spaces. Through her vibrant and layered compositions, Brice peels back the curtain of art history to reveal female power that was too long hidden from sight.
Also on view at 89th Street, Matthew Krishanu: Undercurrents explores the poetic practice of the British-Indian painter. Drawing on photographs from family albums, Krishanu creates figurative compositions that meditate on his own cross-cultural and interfaith background. In the paintings on view, selected from two of the artist’s latest series, Krishanu is found contemplating ways in which the legacy of imperialism and religion framed his own childhood experiences.
Concurrent with the Krishanu and Brice solo exhibitions, LGDR’s temporary space at 909 Madison will host Stage Fright, an exhibition exploring the material presence and power of sculpture. Curated by celebrated American artist Rachel Harrison, Stage Fright features masterworks by leading 20th century artists. Presenting their works in organic configurations and freeing them from the conventional limits of wall mounting and pedestals, Harrison encourages visitors to walk amidst and around the objects as if in a forest, in order to fully experience their corporeal presence. The installation will surround the sculptures on view with an original wallpaper created by Harrison, based on the work of Yves Klein. With its highly conceptual presentation, Stage Fright aims to suggest the ways in which LGDR’s ongoing program will offer new perspectives on the work of pathbreaking modern and contemporary artists.
About LGDR ~ Founded by Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy, Amalia Dayan, and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, LGDR is a collaborative international art venture that brings expertise and vision to its disciplines. LGDR represents and partners with artists and estates—realizing seminal projects and furthering legacies. From placing primary and secondary works of the highest quality and advising clients on the development of their collections, to harnessing its institutional relationships and presenting a curated program with scholarly publications, LGDR puts artistic voices first.
In forming LGDR, the four partners merge their respective specialties across 20th- and 21st-century art; their individual reputations as leaders and tastemakers; and their separate histories as principals of galleries with exemplary exhibition programs. Both international and local in practice and perspective, LGDR has unique spaces and unmatched market knowledge in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong in addition to off-site presentations and satellite teams around the world.