John Wesley
John Wesley
Untitled, 2004
Acrylic on canvas
63 x 39 inches
John Wesley
Concord, 2004
Acrylic on canvas
43 x 46 inches
John Wesley
Chocolate Major, 2002
Acrylic on canvas
63 x 53 inches
John Wesley
Floating Man, 1993
Acrylic on canvas
46 x 55 inches
John Wesley
Mexican Movie, 2002
Acrylic on canvas
51 x 65 inches
John Wesley
Blue Blanket, 2000
Acrylic on canvas
46 x 63 1/4 inches
John Wesley
Rocky Mountain Gym Teacher, 2002
Acrylic on canvas
61 x 53 inches
John Wesley
Van Nuys Honeymoon, 2002
Acrylic on canvas
44 x 50 inches
John Wesley
Tickles, 1998
Acrylic on canvas
40 x 63 inches
John Wesley
Untitled (Man Regarding Couch), 1987
Acrylic on canvas
66 x 66 inches
John Wesley
Western Women, 1983
Acrylic on canvas
48 x 72 inches
John Wesley
Together and Alone
September 6th through October 20th, 2018
Opening reception: Thursday, September 6th, 6 to 8 pm
Fredericks & Freiser is proud to announce an exhibition of paintings by John Wesley. Together and Alone presents a group Wesley’s work from the 1980s to 2000s that suggests the loneliness and tensions of contemporary life. Bold negative spaces, enigmatic couplings, and a dream-like sense of anxiety highlight an aspect of Wesley’s production that communicates a synthesis of neurotics and erotics.
“(John Wesley) has not so much appropriated mass media imagery as he has reanimated and re-orchestrated it to march to the tunes of his own looniness. His horny lyricism probes the prurience and violence of our culture with a confounding blend of hilarity and foreboding. Wesley’s graphic shorthand, flattened space, and monumental scale, at once bring us in close and distance us; we, like the artist, become both coconspirators and neutral observers. Before we know it, the deceptive simplicity of his perversity has turned sex crimes into nursery rhymes and vice versa – and we are singing along … Wesley is very highly accomplished as a form maker, and he imbues his negative spaces with as much tension and shape as his positive spaces. His ground is never a passive container for the figure, but rather an active participant in Wesley’s mischief.”
— Klaus Kertess from his essay on the artist, Erotico(s)mics
About the Artist
John Wesley has been exhibited and collected by numerous museums since the 1960s. Surveys of his work have been held at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, curated by Rudi Fuchs and Kasper Koenig (travelled to Portikus); DAAD, Berlin; PS1 MoMA, Long Island City, curated by Alana Heiss; Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, curated by Linda Norden; Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany, curated by Dr. Martin Henschel; Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX, curated by Marianne Stockebrand; and Fondazione Prada at the Venice Biennale curated by Germano Celant. Since 2004, the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX. has maintained a permanent gallery housing its collection of Wesley’s paintings, as was intended by Judd since the foundation’s inception. This will be Wesley’s 13th solo exhibition at Fredericks & Freiser.
Upcoming
Jocelyn Hobbie: New Paintings
October 25 through December 22
Fredericks & Freiser is located at 536 West 24th Street, New York, NY. Hours are 10am to 6pm, Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, please contact us at (212) 633 6555 or email: info@fredericksfreisergallery.com. Visit us online at www.fredericksfreisergallery.com, and on Instagram @fredericksandfreiser.
