Mernet Larsen
Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021
Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021
Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021
Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021
Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021
Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021
Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021
MERNET LARSEN
Solar System, Explained (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
52 x 55 in
132.1 x 139.7 cm
JCG11681
MERNET LARSEN
Solar System, Explained (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Detail
MERNET LARSEN
Departure (after El Lissitzky), 2019
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
68 1/4 x 45 in
173.4 x 114.3 cm
JCG11415
MERNET LARSEN
Departure (after El Lissitzky), 2019
Detail
MERNET LARSEN
Intersection (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
46 3/4 x 63 in
118.7 x 160 cm
JCG11608
MERNET LARSEN
Intersection (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Detail
MERNET LARSEN
Astronaut: Sunrise (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
49 1/2 x 49 in
125.7 x 124.5 cm
JCG11674
MERNET LARSEN
Astronaut: Sunrise (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Detail
MERNET LARSEN
Astronauts: Sunset (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
49 1/2 x 49 in
125.7 x 124.5 cm
JCG11676
MERNET LARSEN
Astronauts: Sunset (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Alternate view
MERNET LARSEN
Deliverance (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
64 1/2 x 52 1/4 in
163.8 x 132.7 cm
JCG11609
MERNET LARSEN
Deliverance (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Alternate view
MERNET LARSEN
Gurney (after El Lissitzky), 2019
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
45 1/4 x 70 in
114.9 x 177.8 cm
JCG11427
MERNET LARSEN
Gurney (after El Lissitzky), 2019
Detail
MERNET LARSEN
Beach (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
65 x 39 1/2 in
165.1 x 100.3 cm
(JCG11682)
MERNET LARSEN
Beach (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Detail
MERNET LARSEN
Spy (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
35 x 35 in
88.9 x 88.9 cm
JCG11873
MERNET LARSEN
Spy (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Alternate view
MERNET LARSEN
Dawn (after El Lissitzky), 2012
Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas
49 1/2 x 58 in
125.7 x 147.3 cm
JCG11450
MERNET LARSEN
Dawn (after El Lissitzky), 2012
Detail
James Cohan is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Mernet Larsen, on view from December 1 through January 23 at 48 Walker Street. This is Larsen’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. In conjunction with the exhibition’s opening week, the gallery will host a virtual studio visit with the artist and Veronica Roberts, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art, on Friday, December 4 at 2 PM EST. The exhibition will be accompanied by a major retrospective monograph, featuring essays by Veronica Roberts and Susan Thompson, as well as an in-depth interview between Mernet Larsen and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
To book an appointment to visit the exhibition in person, please click here.
To explore the Viewing Room, please click here.
For over six decades, Mernet Larsen has created narrative paintings depicting hard-edged, enigmatic characters that inhabit an uncanny parallel world filled with tension and wry humor. Larsen employs various spatial systems that often contradict: combining reverse, isometric, and conventional perspectives, she casts everyday scenarios into a vertigo-inducing version of reality akin to our own. Drawing from influences that range from the non-objective geometries of Russian Constructivism to Bunraku puppet theater and Indian miniatures, her works take compositional cues from art of the past as springboards for uniquely spatial figure-paintings that speak to the anxieties of the present.
The twelve works in this exhibition belong to the ever-evolving body of narrative painting Larsen has been developing for over twenty years. The paintings in this exhibition excavate the non-objective compositions of El Lissitzky, a central touchstone for Larsen. Using his abstract forms as parameters for free-association, Larsen slowly builds geometric structure into a psychological ordering of representational space to construct what Veronica Roberts calls “some of the most beguiling and psychologically complex narrative paintings of the 21st century.”
