Pippy Houldsworth Gallery brings together the work of seven female artists at Frieze New York 2019.
Widely known for her contribution to the European avant-garde of the 60s and founder of the Situationist Times (1962), Jacqueline de Jong – the most recent addition to the Houldsworth programme – shows large-scale work to coincide with her Retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Mary Kelly, also working in response to the political turbulence and social injustices of the 60s and 70s, presents rare collages from 1966 to be seen in the US for the first time. An important 1960s work by Faith Ringgold, who continues to fight for civil rights and representation for black female artists, articulates this struggle against oppression.
Younger artists – Francesca DiMattio, Jadé Fadojutimi, Ayan Farah and Stefanie Heinze – are showing new painting and sculpture made specifically for the fair. Each artist addresses contemporary politics, considering individual and collective identities.
Francesca DiMattio’s (b.1981) ceramic work highlights the fragmented constructions of identity. Each sculpture is a complex, often humorous, assemblage of parts, that draws upon diverse source imagery, from the banal, the kitsch and the art-historically revered. Often pairing contradictory notions within a singular form, her work calls into question preconceived notions of the feminine and the domestic. DiMattio’s solo museum exhibitions include Blaffer Art Museum, Houston and ICA Boston. Collections include Perez Art Museum, Miami; Saatchi, London; Zabludowicz, London and Paisley Museum and Art Galleries, Glasgow.
Jadé Fadojutimi (b.1993) paints in an expressive manner with a confidence and maturity that belies her years. Her paintings grapple with her sense of self, revealing the adornments used to construct identity. Fadojutimi’s first solo exhibition in a UK public institution was on view at PEER London earlier this month. Later this year her work will tour several US museums as part of the Joyner/Giuffrida Collection. Recent solo exhibitions include Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London and Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Collections include Pamela Joyner; Rachofsky House, Dallas; Sammlung Scharpff, Bonn and HSBC London. Her work is currently on view at Dallas Museum of Art.
Ayan Farah (b.1978) draws on her Somali heritage to reflect upon themes of identity, visibility and oppression in a global world. A nomadic lifestyle enables her to gather organic pigments and dyes from across the globe. Using these to treat vintage fabrics, often over many months, she imbues her minimalist paintings with memory, place and time. Farah’srecent solo exhibitions include Sammlung Klein, Eberdingen-Nussdorf and Kadel Willborn, Dusseldorf. Recent group shows include The London Open at Whitechapel Gallery; Sean Kelly, New York and Tarble Arts Center, Illinois.
Stefanie Heinze’s (b.1987) paintings draw upon images taken from popular culture, consumerism and bodily functions, to interrogate notions of gender and class. The creative potential of failure is integral to her hallucinatory scenes where forms stumble on the verge of metamorphosis and collapse, enacting new possibilities. Heinze is represented by Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London; Capitain Petzel, Berlin and LC Queisser, Tblisi. Collections include Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden and Marguerite Hoffman, Dallas. Other recent exhibitions include Mary Boone, New York; Tanya Leighton, Berlin and Saatchi Gallery, London. Her first solo exhibition in Berlin will open at Capitain Petzel later this month.
Jacqueline de Jong (b.1939) is widely known for her contribution to the European avant-garde of the 1960s. Her work has recently been the focus of renewed critical attention with her retrospective currently on show at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam until August 2019. Last year a retrospective was shown at Musée Les Abattoirs, Toulouse. Other recent solo museum exhibitions include Moderna Museet, Stockholm and Malmö Konsthall. In 2011 her archive was acquired by Yale University. Last month de Jong was awarded the Outstanding Merit Prize as winner of the 2019 AWARE Prize for Women Artists, presented to her at the French Ministry for Culture in recognition of her exceptional career. Collections include Centre Pompidou, Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm and MoCA, Toronto.
Mary Kelly (b.1941) has radically shaped the conversation around feminism and conceptualism since the 1960s. Her project-based work addresses questions of sexuality, identity and collective memory often visualising the formative effect of historical events and social reality on everyday life. Acknowledging her ongoing contribution to post-modernism and cultural politics, The Getty Institute, Los Angeles acquired Kelly’s archive in 2017. Collections include Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, amongst others. This year Kelly was selected for the 2019 Desert X Biennale.
Faith Ringgold (b.1930) is known for her stark, politically-charged works on canvas and her narrative quilted paintings that address race, gender and history. Beginning in the 1960s against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement, her practice continues to challenge the inequalities of the art-world and across society as a whole. The Museum of Modern Art, New York recent acquired a mural-scale painting from the ‘60s, The American People Series, #20: Die. The work has toured to Tate Modern, London and The Brooklyn Museum, New York amongst other museums as part of Soul of a Nation. A monograph on the painting has just been published. She will have her first solo exhibition in a European public institution at the Serpentine Galleries this June. Collections include Brooklyn Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery, Washington and Philadelphia Museum of Art.
