David Zwirner 25 Years

Published on the occasion of the twenty-five year anniversary of David Zwirner, this book paints a picture of the gallery’s growth and development through the lens of the artists that have shaped it. Since its founding in 1993, David Zwirner has above all else been guided by its artist-centric ethos. Beginning with the gallery's early days on Greens Street in SoHo, to its transition and expansion to Chelsea, London, the Upper East Side, and Hong Kong, this book captures David Zwirner's devotion to its inimitable roster of artists and estates. The heart of the publication is a wide-ranging, dynamic selection of the gallery's standout exhibitions—in many cases handpicked by David Zwirner himself. Many of these exhibitions highlight the countless works that ended up in major museum and private collections around the world. Also featured is an extensive gallery history that details all of the exhibitions by every artist and estate presented at David Zwirner, accompanied by archival imagery. With contributions by Richard Shiff and Robert Storr, as well as a foreword by David Zwirner, this publication offers rare insights into the growth of a commercial gallery through its long-term commitment to artists.

Rudolf Zwirner, “the man who invented the art market,” as coined in Der Spiegel, reflects on more than sixty years in the art business in his authoritative autobiography. “Americans now see Germany as a natural breeding ground for mighty gallerists and collectors, but Rudolf Zwirner’s fascinating new memoir walks us through the decades it took to rebuild an art world shattered by World War II. In this dealer’s charming telling, however, the work involved sounds more like play than labor.” —Blake Gopnik, author of Warhol An art dealer of the ages, Rudolf Zwirner, father of the esteemed gallerist David Zwirner, reached many milestones in his career. From cofounding Art Cologne, the first fair for contemporary art, in 1967, to showing works by Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, and Andy Warhol, Zwirner transformed the contemporary art scene in Cologne. Born in 1933, he presented more than three hundred exhibitions from the early 1960s to 1992. In his autobiography, Zwirner reveals stories of artists, his gallery, and his most important collector, Peter Ludwig, whose collection forms the cornerstone of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne. First published in 2019 in German, and translated and adapted here for the first time in English, the book explores the most significant moments of Zwirner’s career and the fast-changing postwar art world. Also included in this edition is a new foreword by Lucas Zwirner, Rudolf’s grandson, who reflects on his grandfather’s role in bringing us to the global art landscape we find ourselves in now.

With a large body of work mainly comprising mixed-media paintings, Tamuna Sirbiladze was known for her distinctive style, which continually forged new terms between dichotomous relationships. Abstract and figurative, playful and serious, energetic and quiet, vibrant and muted, Sirbiladze’s work is characterized by both its intensity and flexibility. Known for the speed at which she worked, there is a quality of immediacy in her paintings, as if they provide direct access to her imagination. This primacy is perhaps most evident in her gestural, improvisatory paintings made with oil sticks on unstretched, raw canvas, which purposely retain the appearance of being unfinished. “As an artist,” Sirbiladze writes, “I don’t want to control what the representation will be seen as.” This catalogue presents a careful selection of these oil stick works along with her other paintings—including her celebrated V Collection (2012), which was made in dialogue with iconic works by Caravaggio, Giotto, Raphael, and Velazquez, as well as her later paintings focused on women’s bodies in intimate, underrepresented scenes, Sirbiladze’s response to male dominance in the art world. With contributions by Max Henry, Anna Kats, and Julie Ryan, as well as a conversation with the artist and an arrangement of fifteen sonnets by her partner, Benedikt Ledebur, this publication provides a comprehensive survey of Sirbiladze’s works and practice.

The inaugural volume in a new series from David Zwirner Books.

Since 2000, The Brooklyn Rail has been a platform for artists, academics, critics, poets, and writers in New York and abroad. The monthly journal’s continued appeal is due in large part to its diverse contributors, many of whom bring contrasting and often unexpected opinions to conversations about art and aesthetics. No other publication devotes as much space to the artist’s voice, allowing ideas to unfold and idiosyncrasies to emerge through open discussion. Since its inception, cofounder and artistic director Phong Bui and the Rail’s contributors have interviewed over four hundred artists for The Brooklyn Rail. This volume brings together for the first time a selection of sixty of the most influential and seminal interviews with artists ranging from Richard Serra and Brice Marden, to Alex Da Corte and House of Ladosha. While each interview is important in its own right, offering a perspective on the life and work of a specific artist, collectively they tell the story of a journal that has grown during one of the more diverse and surprising periods in visual art. There is no unified style or perspective; The Brooklyn Rail’s strength lies in its ability to include and champion difference. Selected and coedited by Jarrett Earnest, a frequent Rail contributor, with Lucas Zwirner, the book includes an introduction to the project by Phong Bui as well as many of the hand-drawn portraits he has made of those he has interviewed over the years. This combination of verbal and visual profiles offers a rare and personal insight into contemporary visual culture. Interviews with Vito Acconci, Ai Weiwei, Lynda Benglis, James Bishop, Chris Burden, Vija Celmins, Francesco Clemente, Bruce Conner, Alex Da Corte, Rosalyn Drexler, Keltie Ferris, Simone Forti, Andrea Fraser, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Suzan Frecon, Coco Fusco, Robert Gober, Leon Golub, Ron Gorchov, Michelle Grabner, Josephine Halvorson, Sheila Hicks, David Hockney, Roni Horn, House of Ladosha, Alfredo Jaar, Bill Jensen, Alex Katz, William Kentridge, Matvey Levenstein, Nalini Malani, Brice Marden, Chris Martin, Jonas Mekas, Shirin Neshat, Thomas Nozkowski, Lorraine O’Grady, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Joanna Pousette-Dart, Ernesto Pujol, Martin Puryear, Walid Raad, Dorothea Rockburne, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Robert Ryman, Dana Schutz, Richard Serra, Shahzia Sikander, Nancy Spero, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Sarah Sze, Rirkrit Tiravanija, James Turrell, Richard Tuttle, Luc Tuymans, Kara Walker, Stanley Whitney, Jack Whitten, Yan Pei-Ming, and Lisa Yuskavage Special thanks to Furthermore, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, for their support of The Brooklyn Rail.

In a unique style that is both sensory and utopian, Yayoi Kusama’s work possesses a highly personal character, yet one that has connected profoundly with large audiences around the globe. Throughout her career she has been able to break down traditional barriers between work, artist, and spectator. Kusama’s work—which spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures—has transcended some of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century, including pop art and minimalism. Conveying extraordinary vitality and passion, her work seems to encompass an autobiographic, even confessional dimension. As stated by Roberta Smith in The New York Times, “These paintings form a great big infinity room of their own, but one in which each part is also an autonomous work of art, its own piece of wobbly, handwrought infinity. You may not want to know these paintings Ms. Kusama has made, but in the moment their vitality is infectious. It is the vitality of an artist who lives to work, whose work keeps her alive.” Yayoi Kusama: Festival of Life documents the artist’s exhibition at David Zwirner’s Chelsea location in New York in late 2017, featuring a selection of paintings from her iconic My Eternal Soul series, new large-scale flower sculptures, a polka-dotted environment, and two Infinity Mirror Rooms. The monograph includes new scholarship on the artist by Jenni Sorkin, as well as a special foldout poster.

HENI presents the final volume to complete a two-volume collection of writings on art by art critic and curator Robert Storr. Featuring criticism, reviews, essays, and articles, many of which are previously unpublished, the book includes his texts on artists such as Gego, Carrie Mae Weems, David Hammons, Jenny Holzer, Jasper Johns, Gerhard Richter, El Anatsui, and Francesco Clemente. His writings range from essays on performances of femininity in Cindy Sherman's photographic oeuvre to dialectics of race in the work of Kara Walker.--

112 Greene Street was more than a physical space—it was a locus of energy and ideas that with a combination of genius and chance had a profound impact on the trajectory of contemporary art...its permeable walls became the center of an artistic community that challenged the traditional role of the artist, the gallery, the performer, the audience, and the work of art. — Jessamyn Fiore 112 Greene Street was one of New York’s first alternative, artist-run venues. Started in October 1970 by Jeffrey Lew, Gordon Matta-Clark, and Alan Saret, among others, the building became a focal point for a young generation of artists seeking a substitute for New York’s established gallery circuit, and provided the stage for a singular moment of artistic invention and freedom that was at its peak between 1970 and 1974. 112 Greene Street: The Early Years (1970–1974) is the culmination of an exhibition by the same name that was on view at David Zwirner in New York in 2011. This extensively researched and historically important book brings together a number of works that were exhibited at the seminal space (including works by Gordon Matta-Clark, Vito Acconci, Tina Girouard, Suzanne Harris, Jene Highstein, Larry Miller, Alan Saret, and Richard Serra); extensive interviews with many of the artists involved in the space; a fascinating timeline of all the activity at 112 Greene Street in the early years; and installation views of the 2011 exhibition. The interviews in the book have been prepared by the exhibition’s curator, Jessamyn Fiore, and Louise Sørensen, Head of Research at David Zwirner, has contributed an introductory text that illuminates the space’s significance and critical reception during the prime years of its operation, as well as commentary on individual works in the show.