Flavin, Judd, Kawara, LeWitt, Palermo, Ryman, Sandback, Serra

David Zwirner is pleased to announce a group exhibition of works by Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Sol LeWitt, Palermo, Robert Ryman, Fred Sandback, and Richard Serra at the gallery’s 612 North Western Avenue location in Los Angeles. Featuring key artists from the gallery’s program who were at the avant-garde of the New York art scene of the 1960s and 1970s, this presentation will bring together a selection of abstract and nonrepresentational works that radically reconfigured the possibilities of their mediums in distinct ways. Highly influential to each other as well as their peers in New York and around the world, these artists established minimal, post-minimal, abstract, and conceptual vocabularies whose echoes still permeate the art world today. 

Highlights from the presentation include Dan Flavin’s (1933–1996) the nominal three (to William of Ockham) (1963), a seminal early work that was the first by the artist to utilize a serial, additive system to structure its composition—here consisting of six fluorescent lamps in three vertical sets, grouped as one, two, and three lamps. Two early paintings from On Kawara’s (29,771 days) Today series will be featured. Frequently referred to as his “Date Paintings,” each consists of a date rendered in a distinctive sans-serif typeface, created by the artist, against a monochromatic ground. These deceptively simple compositions are the result of a stringent protocol and series of decisions,  at once highly ordered and situationally responsive. Similarly, a rare large-format Robert Ryman (1930–2019) work from 1961 also provides insight into the genesis of the artist’s distinctive visual language, featuring densely applied strokes of white paint on a square support with a unique and contrasting treatment of the right side of the composition.

Also on view will be a number of works that incorporate space as a material in distinct ways. Two of Sol LeWitt’s (1928–2007) Modular Structures—a body of work that originated from the idea of the cube as a primary modular unit—from 1965 and 1966 present almost inverse takes on the construction of the volume of this form. Likewise, a multipart vertical sculpture by Fred Sandback (1943–2003) from 1987 will be included. This format succinctly encapsulates the primary concerns of the artist’s practice and in particular highlights his multivalent use of the seemingly infinite vertical line. A “stack” by Donald Judd (1928–1994) comprises ten wall-mounted units made of galvanized iron and translucent green plexiglass. Spaced evenly from floor to ceiling, the empty areas between each unit cohere to form the totality of the work. A 1969 work by Palermo (1943–1977)  presents a pair of isosceles triangles, a recurring form in the artist’s oeuvre; one is blue and hand-painted, whereas the second is a reflective mirror. With this work, Palermo activates the space in which it is installed, employing repetition and variation, while implicating the viewer by reflection.  

Complementing this presentation will be an exhibition of works by John McCracken, on view concurrently in the gallery’s 616 North Western Avenue space. McCracken’s geometric sculptural forms exemplify the distinctly West Coast take on the art coming out of New York during this period. Meticulously crafted from plywood coated with fiberglass and layers of pigmented polyester resin and taken by hand to a high polish, these works embody McCracken’s long-standing investigation of surface, form, color, and the transcendent potential of minimalist abstraction.