Galerie Lelong & Co. to Represent Michelle Stuart

Visual Arts

Galerie Lelong & Co. is delighted to announce representation of American artist Michelle Stuart. Since the 1960s, Stuart has created a multifaceted body of work that defies easy categorization, shifting between large-scale earthworks, collage, drawings, photography and sculpture. Stuart has devoted her decades-long practice to recording and studying traces upon the earth, whether by nature or by human hand, as imprints of identity. As Stuart has said:

“We imprint and are imprints of all that came before.”

Stuart (b. 1933) maps the passage of time and space, retrieving histories even as she makes us aware of their irretrievability. She often utilizes organic materials—earth, beeswax, plant matter—rubbing them against paper or transforming them into objects with talismanic aura. In layering the past into the future, the results drift between memory and myth. Even when working in photography, Stuart perceives an imprinting process, as she researches and re-photographs old prints to recall moments lost to time.

Among Stuart’s most notable works is the site-specific Niagara Gorge Path Relocated (1975), in which she unfurled a 460-foot-long paper scroll down an escarpment upon which, thousands of years ago, Niagara Falls was formerly situated. Her remarkable photographic works also constitute a crucial part of her oeuvre, and in recent years they have received increasing recognition. Stuart was selected to present several photographic grids at the 57th Venice Biennale, VIVA ARTE VIVA, where they were a highlight of the Pavilion of the Earth.

Mary Sabbatino, VP/Partner of Galerie Lelong & Co., says, “We are pleased to welcome Michelle Stuart in joining other canonical artists in our program who investigate the human condition as it exists in history and contemporary life. She has always been present in ongoing dialogues in the arts about body and landscape, and we are proud to support her amidst a growing urgency for the depth and breadth of her work to be fully recognized.” Stuart’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Lelong & Co. will open in February 2019.

Stuart has exhibited internationally over the past 40 years. Notable solo exhibitions include Michelle Stuart: Sayreville Strata Quartet, Dia:Beacon, New York (2017); Theatre of Memory: Photographic Works, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2016); Michelle Stuart: Place and Time, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Michelle Stuart: Drawn from Nature, which opened at the Djanogly Art Gallery, Lakeside Arts Centre, University of Nottingham, England, and traveled to Parish Art Museum, Watermill, New York (2013) and Santa Barbara Museum of Art (2014). Her work is featured in public collections worldwide including MoMA, New York; Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland; The Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum; LACMA, Los Angeles; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna

Museet, Sweden; Musee d’Art Contemporain, France; Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia; SFMoMA, San Francisco; and Tate Gallery, England. Her work is currently featured in A Body Measured Against the Earth, MCA Chicago, and Territorios que Importan: Arte género y ecologia, Centre de Arte y Naturaleza, Fundacion Beulas, Spain.

Stuart is also represented by Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, and Alison Jacques Gallery, London. For more information about Michelle Stuart, visit the gallery website.

For press enquiries, please contact Danielle Wu: (212) 315-0470 or danielle@galerielelong.com. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-6pm.

Join in the conversation with Galerie Lelong & Co. on Twitter (@GalerieLelongNY), Facebook (Galerie Lelong New York), Instagram (@galerielelong) and via the hashtag #MichelleStuart.

Image: Michelle Stuart, Flight of Time, 2016.