Pace Prints is pleased to present a series of new monotypes by David Salle at its 521 West 26th Street gallery. This is Salle’s first exhibition with the gallery, and the artist’s first body of work in the monotype medium. The exhibition will be on view October 8 — November 7, 2020. An online companion to the gallery exhibition will be presented concurrently on paceprints.com.
David Salle is a contemporary American painter, printmaker, and photographer. He is known for his collage-like paintings layering figures and patterns into colorful compositions. His paintings combine references from pop culture and art history, while also exploring abstraction and the human figure.
Over the course of several months in 2019, Salle collaborated with Pace Editions’ master printmakers on a series of unique monotypes, a process that mirrors the act of painting by allowing the artist to apply inks directly to a plate before the image is transferred to paper in the press. To Salle, creating monotypes was immediate and intuitive: painting freehand onto plates, the artist worked as though he was in his own studio, with the added tools and inherent layering capabilities of the printmaking medium.
The resulting works are a series of portraits, multilayered with floral imagery and patterns. Each print allowed the artist the opportunity for new combinations and juxtapositions; portraits layered with his motifs from paintings, such as plant and natural forms, insects, churches, buildings and rooms. Every portrait tells a different story; some subjects appear repeatedly, but with distinct variations. On the centrality of portraiture in this series, Salle says, “the human face is a visual idea worth exploring.”
David Salle was born in Oklahoma in 1952, and grew up in Wichita, Kansas. He currently lives and works in New York, spending time between his studios in Brooklyn and East Hampton. His work has been included in museums and galleries worldwide for 35 years. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Whitney Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; MoMA Vienna; Menil Collection, Houston; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; the Kestner Geselshaft, Hannover; the Guggenheim Bilbao. He was the subject of solo exhibitions at the Dallas Contemporary in 2015 and the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Málaga, Spain in 2016. He has participated in major international expositions including Documenta 7 (1982), Venice Biennale (1982 and 1993), Whitney Biennial (1983, 1985, and 1991), Paris Biennale (1985), and Carnegie International (1985). David Salle is represented by Skarstedt Gallery worldwide.