22
Feb/18

TOM WESSELMANN: STANDING STILL LIFES

22
Feb/18
(photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Tom Wesselmann’s “Standing Still Lifes” are brought together for the first time at Gagosian (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Gagosian Gallery
555 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through February 24, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-741-1111
www.gagosian.com

For the first time ever, Gagosian has gathered all nine of Tom Wesselmann’s large-scale “Standing Still Lifes,” made between 1967 and 1981, joined by drawings, maquettes, magazines, photographs, and other paraphernalia associated with the dynamic, colorful works. Melding Pop art with hyperrealism, each work consists of multiple freestanding pieces that depict basic objects, from lipstick, a telephone, sunglasses, and keys to a toothbrush, a framed picture, a cigarette, and an orange. Other subjects include his wife, Claire Selley, and actress Mary Tyler Moore. “In all of my dimensional work I use the third dimension to intensify the two-dimensional experience,” the Ohio-born Wesselmann, who died in New York in 2004 at the age of seventy-three, explained under a pseudonym, Slim Stealingworth. “It becomes part of a vivid two-dimensional image. The third dimension, while actually existing, is only an illusion in terms of the painting, which remains by intent in a painting and not a sculptural context.” The show continues through February 24 at Gagosian’s Twenty-Fourth St. space.