Sex of Heavenly Bodies
Gary Kuehn
July 11 - August 16, 2024
Gaa New York
Gaa is pleased to present Sex of Heavenly Bodies, a solo exhibition by Gary Kuehn highlighting two work series, Sex of Heavenly Bodies (1994-1997) and Berlin Series (1977-1980).
Kuehn’s work utilizes the logic of construction methods and the inherent qualities of raw materials. Working not only across mediums, but also in varied modes of abstraction, what unifies his work is the sensual attention to material and the authority of geometry. The Sex of Heavenly Bodies and Berlin Series both share a deeply personal and psychological response to the human experience through geometric forms.
The Berlin Series collages, inspired by Kuehn’s time living in Germany during the late years of the Cold War, feature expansive, landscape-like compositions with cuts in the paper allowing painted geometric and architectural shapes to intervene, defining and crossing boundaries. Kuehn states of his time in Berlin in the 70s, “Without being promiscuous it was a reckless and an expansive erotic atmosphere in which to be a young artist at the dawn of the new age.”
The Sex of Heavenly Bodies are wood and graphite sculptures loosely inspired by the Claude Lévi Strauss essay, “The Sex of The Sun and Moon.” The works suggest a complex ambiguous sensuality through the juxtaposition of form and materials. Kuehn’s metaphoric approach to materials and process implies an erotic joining, while meditating on weight, gravity, and the ways in which forms relate. Working with chance procedures and the inherent qualities of materials, Kuehn’s work considers the binary forces that dictate any material or human interaction. Soft/hard, solid/liquid, freedom/control: these are some of the contradictory themes that Kuehn forces into a relationship.
Gary Kuehn (born 1939, Plainfield, NJ) received a BFA in Art History in 1962 from Drew University and an MFA from Rutgers University in 1964. Kuehn played a significant role in Process Art and Post-Minimalism, and participated in the seminal exhibitions Eccentric Abstraction in 1966, curated by Lucy Lippard, and When Attitudes Become Form in 1969, curated by Harold Szeeman. Kuehn held teaching positions at the School of Visual Arts, New York, the Hochschule Fur Bildende Kunste in Braunschweig, Germany, and is Distinguished Professor of Art, Emeritus, at Rutgers University, where he taught for forty years. In 2014 the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein mounted the retrospective exhibition “Between Sex and Geometry, and in 2018 GAMeC - Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bergamo presented a major survey of Kuehn’s work titled “Practitioner’s Delight.” Kuehn has been the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts (1967), DAAD Fellowship (1978) and the Francis J Greenburger Award (1992). His work is included in collections at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Museum Ludwig, Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, Stedelijk Museum, and Musuem of Modern Art Vienna, among others.