The Gesture and the Sign 3 April – 8 June 2013 ‘The Gesture and the Sign’ features recent works by a range of international artists that take their cue from pictorial aspects of lyrical abstraction. With an emphasis on the actual process of painting, lyrical or gestural abstraction can be characterised by techniques that are governed by the artist’s interaction with chance, intuition and circumstance. Triggered by diverse conditions and impulses, the paintings and works on paper in this exhibition share a common purpose in the primacy given to the gesture, the sign and material. Artists such as Mark Bradford, Julie Mehretu, Sterling Ruby and Daniel Senise apply abstraction as a means of observing, negotiating or deconstructing an increasingly mediated world. In Mark Bradford’s large-scale, multi-part work, he uses materials found in the vicinity of his Los Angeles studio (in this case, a merchant poster featuring the telephone number for a ‘Slip and Fall’ lawyer) as the basis for an epic, dense and visually complex composition. The spray painted, hallucinatory canvases of Sterling Ruby also draw influence from his local neighbourhood, here in the form of gang graffiti and the power struggles associated with tagging, defacement and dominion of territory. Julie Mehretu’s dynamic, layered compositions feature intuitive gesture, architectural information and visual signs that build into a maelstrom of time, place and art history, while the abstract compositions of Daniel Senise combine materials embedded and marked with an implied history, which are then overlaid with a pristine white monochrome as an erasure of the past. Accident, failure and alchemy all play a part in the paintings of Sergej Jensen, David Ostrowski and Jacob Kassay. In Sergej Jensen’s work, fabrics such as burlap, linen and wool are incorporated to create minimalist paintings that focus on the incidental and the random. David Ostrowski’s practice likewise embraces the idea of chance and error, producing a range of gestural ‘imperfections’ in his ‘Fehlermalerei’ (‘mistake paintings’). The silver-plated paintings of Jacob Kassay are made by covering the surface of the canvas in white acrylic before they are treated with a chemical process that transforms their surfaces into shimmering variations on the monochrome. The contingency of Damien Hirst’s spin paintings point to the foundation of gestural abstraction, which places significance on techniques such as dripping, dabbing or flinging paint onto the surface of a canvas. The energetic execution of the painting is governed by the artist’s control, and the immediacy of the gesture is captured and locked in an instant. In Kristin Baker’s work, previously described as ‘dystopian Colour Field painting’, the contours are composed more deliberately using taped outlines and broad washes of luminous colour, onto which gestural passages and marks are then spontaneously added. ‘The Gesture and the Sign’ is curated by Susan May, Artistic Director, White Cube. White Cube São Paulo is open Tuesday to Saturday 11am—7pm. For further information, please contact Honey Luard or Sara Macdonald on +44 (0)20 7930 5373. Rua Agostinho Rodrigues Filho 550 Vila Mariana São Paulo +44 (0)20 7930 5373. whitecube.com Artist’s Biographies Kristin Baker was born in 1975 in Stamford, Connecticut and lives and works in New York. Her solo exhibitions have included ‘The Artist File’, the National Art Center of Tokyo (2011); ‘New Paintings’, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2010) and Espace 315, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2004). She has participated in group exhibitions such as ‘In Living Color’, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York (2012); ‘Time is Now’, Le Centre Sportif, Culturel et Social du Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour et La Fondation Aïshti, Beirut (2012), ‘Elles’, Centre Pompidou, Paris, (2009); ‘Art in America NOW’, MoCA Shanghai (2007); ‘USA Today’, Royal Academy of Arts, London(2006); ‘Greater New York’, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2005); ‘Fight or Flight’, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2004) and ‘Open House: Working in Brooklyn’, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York (2004). Mark Bradford was born in 1961 in Los Angeles, where he lives and works. His solo exhibitions have included Aspen Art Museum (2011); ‘Maps and Manifests’ at Cincinnati Museum of Art (2008) and 'Neither New Nor Correct’ at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2007). In 2009, Mark Bradford was the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ Award. In 2010, ‘You’re Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You), a large-scale survey of his work was presented at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, before travelling to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He has participated in group shows such as the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012); 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011); Seoul Biennial (2010), the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2008); São Paulo Biennial (2006) and Whitney Biennial, New York (2006). Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol, UK. He lives and works in London and Devon. His solo exhibitions have included ‘Damien Hirst: Retrospective’, Tate Modern, London (2012); Leeds Art Gallery, UK (2011), Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (2010); The Oceanographic Museum of Monaco (2010); The Wallace Collection, London (2009); Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev (2009); Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2008) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2005). An exhibition of the artist’s private collection, ‘Murderme’, was held at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 2006. He received the DAAD fellowship in Berlin in 1994 and the Turner Prize in 1995. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including 'Our Magic Hour', Yokohama Triennale (2011); 'The Luminous Interval', Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; 'Modern British Sculpture', Royal Academy of Arts, London (all 2011); 'Pop Life', National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2010) and Tate Modern, London (2009); 'Color Chart', Museum of Modern Art, New York; Broad Contemporary Art Museum; LACMA, Los Angeles (all 2008); ‘Play Back’, Musée de la Ville de Paris; 'Re-Object', Kunsthaus Bregenz (all 2007); ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’, Tate Britain (2004) and the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). Sergej Jensen was born in Denmark in 1973 and lives and works in New York. His solo exhibitions have included ‘Portikus’, Frankfurt am Main and the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2010); Malmö Konsthall (2008); Pinakothek Der Moderne (with Henrik Olesen), Munich (2008); Kunsthalle Bergen, Norway (2008); The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2007); Kunstverein Bremerhaven, Germany (2004) and Kunstverein Braunschweig (with Stefan Müller), Germany (2003). His work has been exhibited in a number of major international group exhibitions such as 'Annette Kelm, Sergej Jensen, Wolfgang Breuer', Kunstwerke Berlin (2009); 'Of Mice and Men', Berlin Biennial (2006); 'Momentum Nordice Festival of Contemporary Art', Moss (2006) and the São Paulo Biennial (2004).Jacob Kassay was born in Buffalo, New York in 1984 and he lives and works in Los Angeles. He has had solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2011) and Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2010). Group exhibitions have included the Prague Biennale (2011) and ‘The Indiscipline of Painting: International Abstraction from the 1960s to Now’, Tate St. Ives (2011-12). Julie Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa in 1970 and lives and works in New York. Her solo exhibitions have included Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2009); North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, (2008); ‘City Sitings’, the Detroit Institute of Art; ‘Black City’, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (all 2007); MUSAC, Léon, Spain (2006); St Louis Art Museum (2005); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, REDCAT, Los Angeles and Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (all 2003). She has exhibited in several group exhibitions including ‘Documenta 13’, Kassel, Germany (2012); ‘From Picasso to Julie Mehretu’, British Museum, London (2010); ‘Automatic Cities’ MCA San Diego (2009); ‘Prospect 1’, New Orleans (2008); Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Biennale of Sydney (all 2006); Carnegie International, Pittsburgh; São Paolo Biennial, Whitney Biennial, New York (all 2004) and ‘Poetic Justice’, 8th Istanbul Biennial (2003). David Ostrowski was born 1981 in Cologne, where he lives and works. He has had solo exhibitions at Artothek, Cologne, Jagla Ausstellungsraum (with Harmony Korine), Cologne (all 2012); Parkhaus im Malkasten, Düsseldorf (2010) and Raum für Kunst und Musik, Cologne (2006 and 2005). He has participated in group exhibitions including 'GSK', Gesellschaft für streitorientierte Kulturforschung, Düsseldorf (2011 and 2010); ‘Forgotten Bar Project’, Galerie im Regierungsviertel, Berlin (2010); Royalbunker’, Institut für zeitgenössische Beobachtung, Vienna (2007); ‘Public Folder #2’, Raum für Kunst und Musik, Cologne and Museumsquartier, Vienna (all 2006). Sterling Ruby was born in 1972 in Bitburg, Germany and lives and works in Los Angeles. His solo exhibitions have included Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2013); FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, France (2012); Centre D’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2012); Bonniers Konsthall, Sweden (2012); ‘Grid Ripper’, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo, Italy; ‘Supermax 2008’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; ‘Chron’, The Drawing Center, New York (all 2008) and ‘Slasher Posters & Pillow Works’, Bernier/Eliades, Athens (2007). He has participated in group exhibitions