Martin Barré
Paintings
May 3 - May 31, 2008
Paintings by Martin Barré will be exhibited at the Andrew Kreps Gallery from May 3 through May 31, 2008. The one-person show, paradoxically, Barré’s first in New York in over four decades, was initiated and organized by Thea Westreich and Ethan Wagner.
Martin Barré’s career spanned much of the latter half of the 20th century. He emerged on the Paris scene in the mid-1950s and died in 1993, at the age of 69. During his lifetime, important museums and galleries across Europe regularly exhibited his work.
Barré effectively transcended the time when the ideals of modernism gave way to the new spirit of contemporary art. And, as a contemporary artist, Barré’s inventive and sensitive exploration of line, color and form, and the two-dimensional surface constitutes a singular achievement in the history of abstract painting.
In recent years, Barré has received increased international attention. In 2006 the Centre Pompidou hung three of its trove of Barré paintings with pride of place in one of its permanent galleries, along with works by Carl Andre, Agnes Martin and Robert Ryman. In its 2001 show, “As Painting: Division and Displacement,” the Wexner Center for the Arts prominently exhibited Martin Barré’s paintings with works by Daniel Buren, Donald Judd, Gerhard Richter, Robert Ryman and Jacques Villeglé.
The May 2008 exhibition, “Works by Martin Barré,” at the Andrew Kreps Gallery occasions the publication of the most extensive and complete monograph on Barré yet in print. The 288-page cloth-bound, hardcover book includes 180 full-page color reproductions, and features Yve-Alain Bois’s defining essay on Barré, published for the first time in English (Bois’s own translation). And it contains three illuminating interviews, two by Catherine Millet and the third by Jean Clay.
The Barré book was also initiated and produced by Thea Westreich and Ethan Wagner. Daniel Buchholz and Christopher Muller, Andrew Kreps and Nathalie Obadia joined them in publishing the Barré monograph. Both projects were made possible with the help and dedication of Michèle Barré.