Brice Marden

Brice Marden: Works on Paper accompanies an exhibition at Gagosian Paris of rarely seen drawings and prints by the late painter, and includes an introductory text by art historian Eileen Costello. This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Brice Marden: Works on Paper at Gagosian, rue de Ponthieu, Paris. Organized in collaboration with the Estate of Brice Marden, it featured previously unseen work from the artist's final two decades, selected by his daughters Mirabelle Marden and Melia Marden, and paid tribute to Marden's long ties to the city. This selection of works shows that, for Marden, drawing was as valuable as painting, and reveals his commitment to employing it in the abstract depiction of place. During a visit to Paris in 1964, the artist produced gridded monochrome works using charcoal rubbings of the tiled walls in the home where he stayed, and this graphic documentation of his surroundings constituted a significant intuitive leap. Also evident in Marden's development of distinctive gestural marks is his fascination with conceptual choreography; his works on paper show--as do his paintings--how light and color can dance. The publication includes color reproductions of the more than thirty works in the exhibition as well as details and a photograph of the artist in his studio. It also features "A Direct Form of Expression," an introductory text by art historian Eileen Costello that traces the key role of drawing in the artist's practice, exploring what it reveals about his artistic interests and techniques.

This lavishly illustrated volume features new paintings and works on paper by Brice Marden, with an essay by Eliot Weinberger. Published to coincide with a 2021 exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Brice Marden, this catalogue includes full-color illustrations of each work, as well as details of works and installation views documenting the exhibition. Portraits of the artist in his studio were taken by the artist’s daughter, Mirabelle Marden, and are accompanied by images of works in progress. Marden’s paintings evoke the daily and seasonal shifts in natural light and color that the artist observes when working in his studio in Tivoli in upstate New York. He begins with drawing, filling some canvases with gestural glyphs that occupy a realm between writing and painting. Over these, he applies sinuous, multihued networks of linear brushstrokes, establishing interrelationships between the compositions’ straight and curving lines, and between their contours—whether defined or implied—and perimeters. Related works on paper made on the Caribbean island of Nevis reveal the immediacy and range of Marden’s drawing practice and exemplify the artist’s sustained engagement with the traditions of Chinese poetry and calligraphy, which he initiated in the 1980s and has continuously developed ever since. A new text by Eliot Weinberger takes this particular interest as its point of departure, connecting Marden’s work to the origin of Chinese writing and early modernist philosophies about the content of abstract art.