NEW YORK -- Hauser & Wirth, a leading contemporary and art gallery, has opened a new space in West Chelsea, New York, completing the gallery’s expansion in the contemporary art capital.
Hauser & Wirth’s new 18th Street location, the Swiss gallery's third space in New York, is dedicated to printed editions and serves as the flagship bookstore of Hauser & Wirth Publishers. The space also encompasses offices, a bookstore, a 72-seat amphitheater for public events and the latest iteration of the Roth New York Bar.
“The space will be mostly (used to show) editions in prints. A lot of the works on view at 18th Street by Louise Bourgeois are prints that she did, which are rarely seen,” Daniel Rechtschaffen, communication manager at Hauser & Wirth, told The Korea Herald on opening day on Sept. 8.
The gallery is an extension of its other venue in West Chelsea at 542 West 22nd Street, a five-minute walk from the new space, which opened in 2020.
The two-story building was built in 1920 for New York City’s consolidated gas company and has been restored by David Bench, principal of Inca Architects.
The inaugural exhibition “Once there was a mother” features little-seen print works by Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), centering around some of the most powerful themes the artist is known for -- motherhood and maternity. The exhibition, which runs through Dec. 23, is the first show to focus on her prints since the 2017-18 MoMA exhibition, "Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait," curated by Deborah Wye.
Most of the printed works on show were created during the last decade of the artist's life when images of maternity -- pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding -- came to the fore. While she was in her 90s at the time of their creation, the prints reveal Bourgeois to be exceptionally innovative, with hand-applied details, printing on old garments and household fabric Bourgeois had saved throughout her life.
Born in 1911 in France and working in America from 1938 until her death in 2010, Bourgeois is recognized as one of the most important and influential artists of the past century.
The artist is famously known for her "Maman" spider bronze sculptures that are over 9 meters in height and are found around the world, including South Korea. In Korea, the sculpture is installed at the lakeside near the Ho-Am Museum of Art in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.
At the 542 West 22nd Street space, the gallery is showing a solo exhibition of Swiss artist Nicolas Party, which features expansive pastel murals where the artist contemporizes forgotten classical mediums such as oil-on-copper paintings. The exhibition runs through Oct. 21.
