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Entrance to a white gallery with a view of a painting

Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021

view of a white gallery with three paintings

Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021

figure in a white gallery with three paintings

Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021

white gallery with three paintings

Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021

person observing a painting with a blue circle and geometric figure

Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021

figure in a long gallery with several paintings

Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021

view of white gallery with three paintings

Installation view, Mernet Larsen, 48 Walker St, December 1, 2020 - January 23, 2021

Video
Image of MERNET LARSEN's Solar System, Explained (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Solar System, Explained (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
52 x 55 in
132.1 x 139.7 cm

 

JCG11681
 

model of the solar system on an orange, circular table

MERNET LARSEN
Solar System, Explained (after El Lissitzky), 2020

 

Detail

 

Image of MERNET LARSEN's Departure (after El Lissitzky), 2019

MERNET LARSEN
Departure (after El Lissitzky), 2019
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
68 1/4 x 45 in
173.4 x 114.3 cm

 

JCG11415

painting of a penguin alongside a pair of human legs

MERNET LARSEN
Departure (after El Lissitzky), 2019

 

Detail

Image of MERNET LARSEN's Intersection (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Intersection (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
46 3/4 x 63 in
118.7 x 160 cm

 

JCG11608
 

painting of gardening sheers and yellow flowers on the grass

MERNET LARSEN
Intersection (after El Lissitzky), 2020

 

Detail
 

Image of MERNET LARSEN's Astronaut: Sunrise (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Astronaut: Sunrise (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
49 1/2 x 49 in
125.7 x 124.5 cm

 

JCG11674
 

a train running on the surface of the moon

MERNET LARSEN
Astronaut: Sunrise (after El Lissitzky), 2020

 

Detail

Image of MERNET LARSEN's Astronauts: Sunset (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Astronauts: Sunset (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
49 1/2 x 49 in
125.7 x 124.5 cm

 

JCG11676
 

Installation view of MERNET LARSEN's Astronauts: Sunset (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Astronauts: Sunset (after El Lissitzky), 2020

 

Alternate view

Image of MERNET LARSEN's Deliverance (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Deliverance (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
64 1/2 x 52 1/4 in
163.8 x 132.7 cm

 

JCG11609
 

Installation view of MERNET LARSEN's Deliverance (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Deliverance (after El Lissitzky), 2020

 

Alternate view

Image of MERNET LARSEN's Gurney (after El Lissitzky), 2019

MERNET LARSEN
Gurney (after El Lissitzky), 2019
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
45 1/4 x 70 in
114.9 x 177.8 cm

 

JCG11427
 

a light shining down on a geometric figure laying on a gurney

MERNET LARSEN
Gurney (after El Lissitzky), 2019

 

Detail

Image of MERNET LARSEN's Beach (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Beach (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
65 x 39 1/2 in
165.1 x 100.3 cm
(JCG11682)
 

a geometric man holding a gun

MERNET LARSEN
Beach (after El Lissitzky), 2020

 

Detail

Image of MERNET LARSEN's Spy (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Spy (after El Lissitzky), 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
35 x 35 in
88.9 x 88.9 cm

 

JCG11873
 

Installation view of MERNET LARSEN's Spy (after El Lissitzky), 2020

MERNET LARSEN
Spy (after El Lissitzky), 2020

 

Alternate view
 

Image of MERNET LARSEN's Dawn (after El Lissitzky), 2012

MERNET LARSEN
Dawn (after El Lissitzky), 2012
Acrylic and tracing paper on canvas
49 1/2 x 58 in
125.7 x 147.3 cm

 

JCG11450

the sun rising

MERNET LARSEN
Dawn (after El Lissitzky), 2012

 

Detail

Press Release

Mernet Larsen -  - Exhibitions - James Cohan

James Cohan is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Mernet Larsen, on view from December 1 through January 23 at 48 Walker Street. This is Larsen’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. In conjunction with the exhibition’s opening week, the gallery will host a virtual studio visit with the artist and Veronica Roberts, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Blanton Museum of Art, on Friday, December 4 at 2 PM EST. The exhibition will be accompanied by a major retrospective monograph, featuring essays by Veronica Roberts and Susan Thompson, as well as an in-depth interview between Mernet Larsen and Hans Ulrich Obrist.

 

To book an appointment to visit the exhibition in person, please click here. 

 

To explore the Viewing Room, please click here. 

 

For over six decades, Mernet Larsen has created narrative paintings depicting hard-edged, enigmatic characters that inhabit an uncanny parallel world filled with tension and wry humor. Larsen employs various spatial systems that often contradict: combining reverse, isometric, and conventional perspectives, she casts everyday scenarios into a vertigo-inducing version of reality akin to our own. Drawing from influences that range from the non-objective geometries of Russian Constructivism to Bunraku puppet theater and Indian miniatures, her works take compositional cues from art of the past as springboards for uniquely spatial figure-paintings that speak to the anxieties of the present.

 

The twelve works in this exhibition belong to the ever-evolving body of narrative painting Larsen has been developing for over twenty years. The paintings in this exhibition excavate the non-objective compositions of El Lissitzky, a central touchstone for Larsen. Using his abstract forms as parameters for free-association, Larsen slowly builds geometric structure into a psychological ordering of representational space to construct what Veronica Roberts calls “some of the most beguiling and psychologically complex narrative paintings of the 21st century.”

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