David Zwirner is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by Al Taylor at the gallery’s Hong Kong location, the first presentation of the visionary American artist in Asia. Spanning the mid-1970s through the late 1980s, the works on view will demonstrate Taylor’s transition from painting on canvas to making the three dimensional constructions for which he became known. Moving fluidly between media, Taylor ultimately sought to expand the possibilities of vision in his search for new ways of experiencing and imagining space. His multi-layered investigations of perception provide the viewer with insight into the artist’s idiosyncratic thinking, his methodology, and his playful sense of humor. The exhibition will focus in particular on his canny use of color across media to connect and visually underscore the formal elements of his work.
Although he is more widely known for the three-dimensional works he started making in 1985, Taylor insisted throughout his career that he was a painter—not a sculptor—and maintained that his constructions did not “come from any sculptural concerns. [They come] from a flatter set of traditions.”1 As he wrote, though he moved away from painting in a traditional sense, the perspectival effects made possible by the medium continued to inform his practice: “What I am really after is finding a way to make a group of drawings that you can look around. Like a pool player, I want to have all the angles covered.”2
On view will be a selection of Taylor’s early paintings, which unite abstract compositions with narrative undertones implied by the juxtaposition of formal elements. While they subtly embody reduction and restraint, these works resist stasis with their hints of idiosyncratic playfulness. Borrowing from disparate movements and styles, the artist’s carefully composed paintings do not fit within any one category, but rather manifest a productive tension between flatness and depth, as well as figuration and abstraction that is wholly Taylor’s own. Particularly in later examples, the artist focused more intently on bold color juxtapositions and playful imagery to delineate space and activate the canvas. Both painterly and sculptural, these works possess a fluid rhythm that opens up multiple perspectives.
Also included are examples from Taylor’s Swahili Time series (1981–1983), a group of compositions made following a 1980 trip to Africa. These works are comprised of multiple individual paintings on newsprint, which he arranged in irregular circular formats, and then collaged onto painted wooden supports. The boldly colored abstract imagery in these works suggests parts of a broken alphabet, or disjointed segments of a primitive clock that subliminally infers the movement of time. Through these associations, Taylor characteristically explores multidimensional space and fluid linear motion to open up the boundaries of the pictorial plane.
Taylor’s sculptures, which he thought of as “tools for vision,” were usually fashioned out of unconventional materials, often employing humble and sometimes humorous elements. The exhibition will include examples from Taylor’s Latin Studies series, which marked the artist’s transition from painting on canvas to creating his first three-dimensional objects. While working in tandem on paintings and drawings from the series during 1984, Taylor began to make related configurations out of carpentry scraps that literally extended the picture plane out from the wall. Completed in 1985, the unfolding configurations of planar and linear layers in these early assemblages develop the ideas that would preoccupy Taylor in the ensuing decades of his career.
The exhibition will also feature several sculptures from Taylor’s Broomsticks series, a group of works spanning from 1986 to 1992 that incorporate segments of colorful wooden broomsticks the artist had scavenged from the street trash in New York City. These assemblages engage the phenomenological as well as the perceptual experience of the viewer as they vacillate between two and three dimensions with their exploration of line, shadow, and perspective.
Presented in dialogue with each other, the works included in Playing with Color show Taylor’s consistent and unwavering experimental freedom and sense of play with color, form, and medium.
Al Taylor (1948–1999) was born in Springfield, Missouri, and received a B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1970. He moved to New York later that year, where he would continue to live and work until his death, in 1999. His first solo exhibition took place in 1986 at the Alfred Kren Gallery in New York. His work would go on to be shown in numerous exhibitions in America and Europe, including solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Bern (1992) and the Kunstmuseum Luzern (1999), both in Switzerland.
A retrospective of Taylor’s drawings was organized posthumously by the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, in 2006. A retrospective of the artist’s prints opened at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, in September 2010, and traveled to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark, in Spring 2011. The Santa Monica Museum of Art, California, presented a focused overview of two bodies of work by the artist, Wire Instruments and Pet Stain Removal Devices, in 2011. In 2013, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta mounted the exhibition Drawing Instruments: Al Taylor’s Bat Parts and Endcuts. In 2014, The Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, presented Six Panels: Al Taylor, curated by Robert Storr. A major survey of the artist’s work was presented at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta in 2017–2018. The Drawings of Al Taylor was on view at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, in 2020.
Work by the artist is represented in a number of prominent public collections, including the British Museum, London; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
The Estate of Al Taylor has been represented by David Zwirner since 2007. This is the eighth solo presentation of Taylor’s work at the gallery.
1 Al Taylor, unpublished artist’s statement, July 1990.
2 Ibid.
《阿爾·泰勒：色彩的遊戲》
香港 | 中环皇后大道中80号 H Queen’s 5-6楼
儘管泰勒更為人熟悉的是他開始於1985年的三維創作，但他在整個職業生涯中都始終視自己為一位畫家——而非雕塑家——並且堅定地認為他的創作「與雕塑性的思考無關。（它們）來自一系列‘更平面化’的傳統。」【1】正如藝術家所寫：「我真正追求的，是找到一種方式創作出能讓你四下觀看的畫。就像一位桌球手，我想仔細地考量每個角度。」【2】
展覽將呈現泰勒的一組早期繪畫，它們融合了不同的形式，以結合抽象的構圖和隱藏的敘事。儘管這些作品微妙地體現出簡化和克制，但它們又以極具玩味的嬉戲的暗示來抵御僵化的創作表達。藝術家精心構圖的繪畫創作，借鑒了各種不同的運動及風格，它們不屬於任何一種門派分類，而是在平坦與縱深、具象與抽象之間顯現出一種泰勒所獨有的張力。尤其是在一些較為晚期的繪畫中，藝術家更多地聚焦於大膽的色彩排布以及饒富趣味的意象，以此切割空間並豐富畫面。泰勒這些兼具繪畫性和雕塑性的創作，有其獨特的流動的韻律，從而開啓了多重的觀看視角。
此外，展覽還將包括泰勒《斯瓦希里時間》系列（1981–1983）中的幾件作品，這是藝術家1980年非洲之行後的一組創作。作品由多幅獨立的新聞報紙繪畫組成，泰勒將之以不規則的圓形排布，隨後再將它們都拼貼到布面或是經過彩繪的木質背板上。作品中用色大膽的抽象圖像，暗示了破碎的字母表或是簡樸的鐘錶的零部件，它們好像在潛移默化地推進著時間。通過這些聯想，泰勒以其獨特的風格探索多維空間以及流暢的線性運動，以打開繪畫平面的邊界。
泰勒認為他的雕塑是「視覺工具」，它們通常都由非傳統的材料創作而成，並且時而會加入質樸又幽默的元素。此次展覽將呈現出自泰勒《拉丁研究》系列的創作，整組作品標誌著藝術家從布面繪畫到他第一件三維作品的過渡。在1984年創作該系列繪畫的同時，泰勒開始運用木工廢料創作相關的作品，這些材料將繪畫平面從牆面拓展了出去。這些早期的組合式作品於1985年完成，在隨後的職業生涯中，泰勒持續探索著這些早期作品中存在的平面和線性關係。
此次還將展出泰勒《帚柄》系列中的數件雕塑，這組1986至1992年間的創作包括了各種彩色木質的帚柄，它們是藝術家在紐約街頭的垃圾堆中蒐羅而得的。這些組合式的作品深入探究了觀看的經驗和感知的體驗，它們探索了線條、陰影和視角，游走於三維和二維之間。
展覽《色彩的遊戲》中的作品彼此之間形成對話，展現出泰勒一以貫之的、具實驗性的自由創作，還有他充滿趣味性的色彩、形式和媒介探索。
阿爾·泰勒（1948–1999）出生於密蘇里州的斯普林菲爾德，1970年在堪薩斯城藝術學院獲得BFA純藝術學士學位。同年，他移居紐約，此後一直工作生活於此，直到1999年離世。1986年，藝術家的首次個展於紐約的阿爾弗雷德·科倫畫廊舉辦。隨後，他的作品陸續展出於美國和歐洲，包括瑞士伯爾尼美術館（1962）和盧塞恩美術館（1999）個展。
藝術家離世後，德國國家圖形藝術收藏會於2006年在慕尼黑現代藝術陳列館為其舉辦了回顧展。2010年9月，慕尼黑現代藝術陳列館再度為藝術家的版畫作品舉辦回顧展，並在2011年春季巡展至丹麥胡姆勒拜克的路易斯安那現代藝術博物館。2011年，位於加州的聖莫妮卡藝術博物館為藝術家舉行展覽，專注呈現了泰勒的兩個系列《繩索器具》和《寵物污漬清除裝置》。2013年，亞特蘭大的海氏藝術博物館組織策劃了藝術家個展《繪畫工具：阿爾·泰勒的〈球棒部件〉和〈截面切割〉》。2014年，位於康州新迦南的「菲利普·約翰遜玻璃屋」呈現了由羅伯特·斯托（Robert Storr）策展的《六塊面板：阿爾·泰勒》。2017–2018年，亞特蘭大海氏藝術博物館再度為藝術家的作品舉行了一場重要的專題個展。2020年，展覽《阿爾·泰勒的畫作》於紐約摩根圖書館與博物館舉辦。
藝術家的作品被珍藏於眾多重要的公共收藏中，包括倫敦的大英博物館、巴黎蓬皮杜藝術中心、法國國家現代藝術博物館、馬里蘭州波托馬克的格蘭斯通博物館、亞特蘭大的海氏藝術博物館、休斯頓美術館、紐約摩根圖書館與博物館、紐約現代藝術博物館（MoMA）、華盛頓特區的美國國家美術館、慕尼黑國家圖形藝術收藏會，以及紐約的惠特尼美國藝術博物館等。
自2007年起，阿爾·泰勒藝術遺產基金會便由卓納畫廊代理。這將是泰勒的第八次畫廊個展。
【1】 阿爾·泰勒，引語出自未發表的藝術家陳述，1990年7月。
【2】 同上。
媒體垂詢
Julia Lukacher +1 212 727 2070 jlukacher@davidzwirner.com