John Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition featuring work by Tom Friedman, Kiki
Smith, Vik Muniz, Julião Sarmento, Anton Henning and Jonathan Callan on view from October 1-
October 31, 2009.
Working with such unconventional materials as construction paper, cellophane tape, silicone, partially
erased magazine pages, and intricately cut sheets of newspaper, the works in Six Artists share a sense of
tactility, experimentation, play and historical referencing. The works can be provocative, Kiki Smith’s
Ejaculating Snake, deceptive, as with Vik Muniz’s Woods in November, after Albert Renger-Patzsch and
Back, after Dorothea Lange, from the Pictures of Paper series, which after an initial impression of threedimensionality
reveal themselves to be one-dimensional photographs, or intricate, such as Tom
Friedman’s precisely cut NYtimes on Xmas. Julião Sarmento’s multi-media works Negócios Galantes e
Pilagens and Some Attributes of Anxiety invite the viewer to explore the forms hidden beneath the matte
surfaces. Anton Henning, with his lush, exuberant ribbons of paint in Interieur No. 398 and Interieur No.
407, revels in the simplicity and beauty of oil on canvas. Jonathan Callan’s pinups in Joan Bennett 1932
and Lana Turner are luminous presences, dissolving before the viewer’s eyes. All the works
have a strong sense of the artist’s hand at work, whether through the drawn lines of Sarmento
and Kiki Smith, the precise layering of cut paper in Friedman, the curvilinear gestures of
Henning’s paint, or Muniz and Callan’s manipulation of paper through cutting and erasure.
Six Artists is running in conjunction with Michael Gregory, Western Constructs.
For further information and photographs, please contact the gallery at 415.781.4629 or
info@berggruen.com