K E W E N I G

Sean Scully “Four Days” 4 September to 7 November 2015 Opening on 4 September from 6 to 9 pm; the artist will be present. Opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm

“Four Days” is the first solo exhibition of the internationally acclaimed artist Sean Scully (b. in Dublin in 1945) at Kewenig in Berlin. New oil paintings by the Irish-American artist will be on view, as well as a selection of works on paper and one sculpture. Among the pieces executed especially for Berlin is the four-part painting Four Days after which the exhibition was named, Landline Blue, and an impressive triptych titled Arles-Abend-Vincent 2 – all works dating from 2015.

Sean Scully is one of the most prominent contemporary exponents of abstract painting. He stands for an absolute, non-figurative style decisively distinguished by color. Pictorial compositions consisting of grid-like blocks or beam-like stripes are characteristic of his œuvre, as is the haptic quality resulting from the forceful brushstroke and impasto application of the paint and accounting for the works’ strong physical presence. Rather than simple canvas, the artist prefers to paint on higher-quality materials such as linen or aluminum, which lend the surfaces greater suppleness and heighten the radiance of the colors.

Assembled from squares, rectangles and stripes, Scully’s motifs are based on basic geometric elements that are brought to life, however, by intense emotional impetus and the energy-charged painting manner. In their rectilinear structure and abstraction, his compositions thus exhibit not only conceptual stringency and order but also a high degree of emotionality. “I want things to be clear,” says Scully, “but my paintings are not about clarity: They are a revelation. If you come and see my works looking for clarity, you’ll only end up getting agitated.”1

The artist’s work is by no means detached from reality. On the contrary, Scully draws on reality, for example nature and its manifold visual manifestations. This is mirrored especially in the Landlines, a series of new works that can be conceived of as an abstract form of landscape painting, an allegory of the interplay between land, sky and sea. Broad horizontal stripes of six or more colors hover one above the other and appear to vibrate in unison – an impression brought about by the soft layers of paint usually applied next to and on top of one another damp in damp with a broad brushstroke. The blend of colors and the vigorous process of the paint’s application unite to bring forth rhythmic and musical compositions that evoke sensations in the viewer similar to those inspired by natural phenomena: of expanse, tranquility and harmony, but also awe and grandeur.

1 Danilo Eccher, “Sean Scully: Land Sea”, in Sean Scully: Land Sea (Milan: Skira, 2015), p. 95.

Brüderstr. 10 D-10178 Berlin T. 0049.30.3988 0380 [email protected] www.kewenig.com K E W E N I G

Sean Scully lives and works in New York, in Königsdorf in Bavaria, and in Barcelona. His works have hitherto been presented in some two hundred solo exhibitions in Europe, the U.S. and South America, for example at the National Gallery of Ireland (2015), the Museum Liaunig, Neuhaus, Austria (2015), the Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2014), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2012–13), the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (2012), the Kunstmuseum Bern (2012), the Haus der Kunst in Munich (2008–09), the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2007), the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid (2004), the National Gallery of Arts in Washington, D.C. (2001–02) and the Lenbachhaus München (1989).

Two major surveys of the artist’s work – “Figure Abstract” and the retrospective “Follow the Heart” – were on view recently at various institutions in Europe and the Far East: the Ludwig Museum Koblenz, the Kunsthalle Rostock and the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, Ireland (“Figure Abstract”), as well as at the Himalayas Art Museum in Shanghai and the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing (“Follow the Heart”). Sean Scully is presently exhibiting at the National Gallery of Ireland until 20 September 2015, and until 22 November 2015 he is represented at this year’s Venice Biennale with the solo exhibition “Land Sea” in the Palazzo Falier. For the Church of St. Cecilia in Montserrat near Barcelona he executed twenty-two works, including oil paintings and frescoes, which were placed on view permanently there in July 2015.

Numerous collections in many countries have works by the artist in their holdings, for example the Neue Pinakothek München, the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus München, the Kunstsammlung NRW in Düsseldorf, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Tate Britain in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig - MUMOK in Vienna and the Irish Museum of Modern Art – IMMA in Dublin.

Sean Scully is not only an artist but also a figurehead of the art discourse. He has published numerous catalogues and books, including Sean Scully – Resistance and Persistence: Selected Writings (2006), a collection of his essays on Giorgio Morandi, Van Gogh and Rothko. Scully moreover looks back on many years of teaching at renowned institutions such as the Chelsea School of Art and Design, Goldsmith’s College, Princeton University and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich.

Brüderstr. 10 D-10178 Berlin T. 0049.30.3988 0380 [email protected] www.kewenig.com