Arlene Shechet: Moon in the Morning
Pace Gallery | Hong Kong
Arlene Shechet: Moon in the Morning
Opening reception: Thursday, May 19, 6-8pm
May 20 – June 30, 2022 12/F, H Queen's
80 Queen's Road Central Hong Kong
Hong Kong – Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of new and recent work by sculptor Arlene Shechet at its Hong Kong gallery from
May 20 to June 30. Titled Moon in the Morning, the show marks Shechet’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong.
The presentation will feature nine sculptures, including both large- and small-scale works. The show will coincide with Art Basel Hong
Kong, where Pace will present two new works by Shechet.
The exhibition’s title, Moon in the Morning, reflects Shechet’s longstanding interest in unions of seemingly disparate, incongruous materials and forms. Beautiful and disorienting, a moon in the morning can be understood in the context of the visual paradoxes and contradictions Shechet explores in her sculptures.
Shechet’s methodology for creating idiosyncratic, biomorphic, boldly colored sculptures is both highly technical and entirely intuitive—she does not employ drawings or armatures as part of her process. Guided by a general impulse, the artist engages in a spirited back and forth with her works, embracing improvisation and chance as she brings a sculpture into being. Shechet’s ceramic works are marked by complex finishes, which the artist creates by layering glazes over the course of several firings.
In Moon in the Morning, Shechet animates her individual works with combinations of geometric and organic forms, cultivating a dialogue between them. Physical enactments of fragmentation and cohesion—and their attendant emotional and psychological resonances—are central to the artist’s practice and approach to exhibition making.
With Inhaled a Blue Moon (2021), one of the large sculptures in the exhibition, Shechet uses painted wood, powder coated steel, and silver gilding to produce a dynamic composition. As with other sculptures in the exhibition, Shechet uses color—in this case, vibrant blues—to relate dissimilar materials to one another. Inhaled a Blue Moon exemplifies the artist’s affinity for working with discordant, often unwieldy media that present challenges and questions.
The works in Moon in the Morning evoke a broad range of associations through their forms and titles, encouraging an open, undirected experience for viewers. Together Forever (2021) incorporates three distinct elements—made of ceramic, wood, and steel, respectively—to form a unified composition. Song and Dance (2022), another sculpture in the exhibition, features ceramic, wood, silver, and brass elements engaged in lively choreographies with each other.
Sculptures from Shechet’s Together series, which has been the subject of exhibitions at Pace’s Palo Alto and East Hampton galleries, also figure in the artist’s Hong Kong show. Deeply engaged with modes of keeping and marking time, these brilliantly colored works are named for the days of the week and months of the year during which they were created. In this body of work, texturally and chromatically rich abstractions rendered in glazed ceramic are situated atop steel structures. The ceramic sculptures feature intense, saturated colors that complement or contradict the colors of their steel bases. The relationship between the ceramic formations and the steel structures is characterized by both balance and precarity, with organic elements flowing and falling playfully around their supports.
In June, a group exhibition curated by Shechet will open at Pace’s 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York. Titled STUFF, the show will include works by artists within and beyond the gallery’s program that have been sources of inspiration for Shechet in her own practice.
Arlene Shechet (b. New York) is a multidisciplinary sculptor living and working in New York City and the Hudson Valley. A major, critically acclaimed survey of her work, All At Once, which The New York Times called “some of the most imaginative American sculpture of the past 20 years, and some of the most radically personal,” was on view at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, in 2015 with an accompanying monograph. Since joining Pace Gallery in 2018, the artist has been featured in three solo exhibitions—Skirts (2020) in New York City, Together (2020) in East Hampton, and Together: Pacific Time (2021) in Palo Alto. Shechet’s work also includes historical museum installations. Porcelain, No Simple Matter: Arlene Shechet and the Arnhold Collection was on view at The Frick Collection, New York (2016); and From Here On Now at The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., (2016). The artist’s ambitious large-scale public project, that included monumental porcelain and mixed-media sculptures, opened in September 2018 at Madison Square Park in New York.
Shechet was featured in PBS’s Art 21 (2014) as well as in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s The Artist Project (2016). She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship Award (2004), the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant (2010), and the 2016 CAA Artist Award for Distinguished Body of Work.
Shechet’s work is held in many distinguished public collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York; CCS Bard Hessel Museum, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; The Jewish Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
Pace is a leading international art gallery representing some of the most influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century, holding decades-long relationships with Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. Pace enjoys a unique U.S. heritage spanning East and West coasts through its early support of artists central to the Abstract Expressionist and Light and Space movements.
Since its founding by Arne Glimcher in 1960, Pace has developed a distinguished legacy as an artist-first gallery that mounts seminal historical and contemporary exhibitions. Under the current leadership of President and CEO Marc Glimcher, Pace continues to support its artists and share their visionary work with audiences worldwide by remaining at the forefront of innovation. Now in its seventh decade, the gallery advances its mission through a robust global program—comprising exhibitions, artist projects, public installations, institutional collaborations, performances, and interdisciplinary projects. Pace has a legacy in art bookmaking and has published over five hundred titles in close collaboration with artists, with a focus on original scholarship and on introducing new voices to the art historical canon.
The gallery has also spearheaded explorations into the intersection of art and technology through its new business models, exhibition interpretation tools, and representation of artists cultivating advanced studio practices. Pace’s presence in Silicon Valley since 2016 has bolstered its longstanding support of experimental practices and digital artmaking. As part of its commitment to technologically engaged artists within and beyond its program, Pace launched a hub for its Web3 activity, Pace Verso, in November 2021.
Today, Pace has ten locations worldwide including a European foothold in London and Geneva, and two galleries in New York—its headquarters at 540 West 25th Street, which welcomed almost 120,000 visitors and programmed 20 shows in its first six months, and an adjacent 8,000 sq. ft. exhibition space at 510 West 25th Street. Pace was one of the first international galleries to establish outposts in Asia, where it operates permanent gallery spaces in Hong Kong and Seoul, as well as an office and viewing room in Beijing. In 2020, Pace opened satellite exhibition spaces in East Hampton and Palm Beach, with continued programming on a seasonal basis. In 2022, the gallery opened its West Coast flagship in Los Angeles, and continues to operate its gallery in Palo Alto.
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