Artist Christopher Wool is returning to New York for his biggest exhibit since his Guggenheim retrospective in 2013. The new show is set in an enormous industrial warehouse and will run through July 31.
Wool is known for his abstract, modern art. His signature style consists of black, brushstroke paintings, many of which are on display in “See Stop Run.” The show includes seventy-four pieces that were created primarily over the past decade, displayed on the 19th floor of an unfinished industrial office space in Manhattan. The 18,000-square-foot space on Greenwich Street is exactly what Wool wanted for the show: an environment that works in conversation with the art.
“Galleries can be limiting; raw space is not,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “The whole dilemma with the white cube gallery room is it’s neutral. It doesn’t give you anything. The characteristics of this space give something back.” The “U” shaped layout of the space naturally creates different environments that are suited to the different types of work on display. The collection features eleven paintings in Wool’s signature style, with Rorschach-esque black brushstrokes painted on silk screens and linen. Thirty more paintings are dreamier oil and inkjet works of swirling patterns. There is a photographic series that features a fire in a building Wool lived in in 1996, and twenty-five sculptures made of copper and barbed wire. The eclectic show works in tandem with the raw space to produce the effect Wool desired.
“Imperfection is the goal. You get tension with imperfection and small amounts of chaos in these pieces, which is strengthened by how unfinished and raw the space is,” he said. “There are also heavy passages of white paint and blobs of white plaster on the wall, which enhances the painting and the art. This story is about the relationships between the different elements of work and the building itself.”
When explaining how the wide range of pieces fit together, Wool said, “Despite the fact that I work in several mediums, they’re all tied to something central: composition, drawing, images, how multiple images make statements, how a book of photographs can be comparable to a sculpture, which can be comparable to a painting.”
Wool has been creating intriguing and inspiring art in New York City for many years. He rented his first studio in Chinatown at age 20 in 1976 and stayed in the area for the next twenty-five years. His text painting and silkscreening gained popularity throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and he became known for his black stenciling, paint layering, and graffiti-like spray paint on canvas. Wool began experimenting with sculpture late in his career after he and his wife moved to Texas. The Guggenheim retrospective of his work in 2013 debuted his sculptures to great success.
While the Guggenheim show made his work more popular than ever, it left Wool feeling burnt out and uninspired. The next five years were slow and difficult to work through, but “See Stop Run” reignited Wool’s creative spark, and his love for New York City. “It’s felt like making art,” he said simply, adding, “I’ve fallen in love with this 120-year-old building.”
