Sabine Moritz, Lair I (2022), via Marian Goodman
On view this summer at Marian Goodman, a solo exhibition by Sabine Moritz brings forth a suite of new large-scale paintings and works on paper. The exhibition, the artist’s first presentation in the New York gallery, follows three previous exhibitions held at Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris. The presentation will be comprised of a new series of abstract paintings and new intimately scaled workson paper, all from 2021-2022. This vibrant, abstract terrain is presented in conjunction with four select representational works. This new body of work can be seen as the next chapter in Moritz’s phenomenological practice –– acts of deep looking that seek to understand the world.
Sabine Moritz (Installation View), via Marian Goodman
The exhibition is a continuation of Moritz’s longstanding investigation into memory as a form of knowledge, and here traces that interest through a series of paintings that continue operations of remembering and reliving through both newly constructed images and utilized photographs that document daily life and then reframe it. By bringing together hallmarks of East and West Germany during the Cold War, the artist explored collective spaces and collective memory. Here, Moritz diverges from concrete reference material, but the continuation of a similar hand now favoring dynamic, intensely wrought abstract works leads to a series of densely composed, rich sensorial fields that touch on similar notions of memory while foregoing immediate reference material. In this way, the artist’s turn to abstraction is a continuation of her inquiry of memory, moving to address the haptic, physiological ways in which we hold and transform history.
Sabine Moritz, Space I (2021), via Marian Goodman
Sabine Moritz, Space II (2021), via Marian Goodman
Similarly the works themselves seem pulled together from a series of fragmented gestures, colorful heaps of material and carefully assembled structures that, while avoiding easy classification, recall a scenic, almost photographic assemblage. Removing photographic qualities in favor of an underlying form, a structure and undergirding, it’s as if Moritz traces the fading nature of past memories, leaving the rich emotional material while the imagistic qualities seem to fade into the ether.
Compiling a range of new iterations and visions in the artist’s practice, the show closes August 19th.
– D. Creahan
Read more:
Sabine Moritz at Marian Goodman [Exhibition Site]
