Lehmann Maupin is pleased to present Beyond Material, a group show curated by the gallery’s London-based Partner Isabella Icoz. Beyond Material brings together work from nine artists within the gallery’s program, including Kader Attia, McArthur Binion, Todd Gray, Nicholas Hlobo, Shirazeh Houshiary, Liza Lou, Kim Yun Shin, Do Ho Suh, and Billie Zangewa. The exhibition is centred around the unique approach each of these artists take to material within their practices—from Houshiary’s use of water and aquacryl to create fluid, ethereal forms, to Lou’s decades-long engagement with glass beads as a primary sculptural medium, to Zangewa’s hand-stitched silk collages, which she imbues with a sense of warm domesticity.
Icoz, who was named Partner in October of 2023 after over a decade with the gallery, has played a pivotal role in developing Lehmann Maupin’s presence in Europe and the UK. She has overseen the UK debuts of many of its artists, including most recently Kim Yun Shin and Dominic Chambers. Icoz has previously curated several exhibitions at Lehmann Maupin, including the 2022 exhibition Beneath the Surface and the 2021 exhibition Body Topographies, both in London.
Beyond Material coincides with significant global presentations for many of the artists, including Kader Attia’s solo exhibition at MUAC in Mexico City, Mexico, Billie Zangewa’s solo exhibition at the Norval Foundation, in Cape Town, South Africa, Liza Lou’s inclusion in a group exhibition at Chatsworth House, Bakewell, United Kingdom, and Do Ho Suh’s major survey exhibition at Tate Modern, opening May 1 in London. The exhibition comes on the heels of debut solo exhibitions at Lehmann Maupin in New York and London for Todd Gray and Kim Yun Shin, respectively, and precedes a solo exhibition with the gallery in New York for Kader Attia. Beyond Material will be on view from March 20–May 10, 2025 at Lehmann Maupin’s temporary space, located at No.9 Cork Street. An opening reception will be held from 6–8 PM on Thursday, March 20.
Throughout Beyond Material, Icoz explores how, for each of the included artists, materials are used not just as aesthetic components but as a way of engaging with broader social, historical, and emotional concerns, as well as how the evolution of materiality in their works reflects an ongoing dialogue about the role of art in reflecting and shaping the world we live in. The concept of materiality within art has evolved significantly over time, from the early 20th century’s embrace of new materials and industrial techniques to the postmodern era’s focus on deconstruction and the rethinking of the art object itself. Materiality in contemporary art involves not just the physical substance of a work but also the social, political, and philosophical implications of the materials chosen.
“Over the course of Lehmann Maupin’s nearly 30-year history, we’ve championed artists whose works utilize diverse materials that often function as vehicles for meaning and metaphor,” says Icoz. “The artists in this exhibition are united by innovative approaches to their respective mediums, pushing the boundaries of traditional art forms forward to explore how material use can go beyond pure aesthetics and toward conveying complex narratives that speak to our current moment. The works of all of these artists challenge artistic notions of identity, community, and even material itself, illuminating the connection between material and the greater sociocultural ecosystem we live in.”
For example, in Kader Attia’s sculpture Red Modernity 1 (2019), the artist juxtaposes sacred, indigenous objects with modern intervention. Composed of a wooden African tribal headrest and a manufactured red florescent lighting fixture, Attia draws attention through his materials to Western society’s tendency to appropriate cultural symbols, signaling “otherness” and displacing artifacts from their histories. His work here and elsewhere in his practice, including in his Mirrors and Masks series, gestures towards this tendency in the art historical cannon as well, recalling, for example, Picasso’s use of the African mask.
Meanwhile, in McArthur Binion’s Circuit Landscape: No. 5 (1973), expressive marks made in oil paint stick evoke landscape and handwriting at once. Binion’s process is both labor-intensive and physically demanding, and the artist applied considerable pressure to create the gestural marks in oil paint stick that comprise this work’s surface. The resulting dynamic surface reveals physical traces of the artist’s hand and body—material evidence of both personal history and artistic labor. Here, these marks signal the artist’s early explorations of the “underconscious”, or an underlayer consisting of photocopies of personal images and documents that would go on to become a defining hallmark of his oeuvre.
And in Liza Lou’s abstract work on canvas Ode (2024), the artist explores the medium of painting through the use of glass beads. Activating the intense chroma and refractive qualities of glass beads, Lou allows her signature material to flow and coagulate into a new form of paint, applying beads in free-form gestures through an intuitive approach. At close range, the tiny, individual 3-dimensional pieces of factory-made color jostle each other, resulting in micro explosions that register as surprise, offering a new take on American Abstract painting.
Additional exhibition highlights include works by Todd Gray, Nicholas Hlobo, Shirazeh Houshiary, Kim Yun Shin, Do Ho Suh, and Billie Zangewa.
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