The Armory Show 2020 | Booth 914 | 5 - 8 March 2020

Hales at The Armory Show

Omar Ba, Sunil Gupta, Virginia Jaramillo, Hew Locke, Maja Ruznic and Carolee Schneemann

Booth 914, Pier 94, New York, NY

Wednesday, March 4, VIP Preview (invitation only)

Thursday, March 5, 12pm — 8pm

Friday, March 6, 12pm — 8pm

Saturday, March 7, 12pm — 7pm

Sunday, March 8, 12pm — 6pm

Hales Gallery is delighted to announce its return to The Armory Show for the fair’s 2020 edition, with a group presentation of esteemed artists from the gallery’s roster – Omar Ba, Sunil Gupta, Virginia Jaramillo, Hew Locke, Maja Ruznic and Carolee Schneemann. Diverse in perspective and their respective practices – their work in photography, painting and sculpture is being exhibited globally to much critical acclaim.

Omar Ba (b. 1977 Senegal) lives and works in both Dakar, Senegal and Geneva, Switzerland, drawing on past memories and present experiences of both cultures to create works both deeply personal and politically resonant; works that, he suggests, tell the stories and weave a thread between African and European culture. His paintings fuse figurative and decorative modes, combining a masterful use of oil and gouache and crayon and delicately applied china ink with rough, readymade surfaces such as corrugated cardboard. Promesse 3 (2014) is an outstanding work aswarm with activity – the central figure merges with a decorative pattern of plants, creating a hybridity, as though humanity and vegetation are one. In 2019, Ba’s comprehensive solo exhibition, Same Dream, toured Canada to The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto and Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal. In 2019, Ba’s comprehensive exhibition toured Canada to The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto and Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal. Ba’s work is currently featured in The Moon Seemed Lost at Hales New York and he is an artist in residence at ISCP (international studio & curatorial program) in New York, NY, USA.

Sunil Gupta (b. 1953 New Delhi, India) has maintained a visionary approach to photography, producing a rich body of work that has pioneered a unique social and political commentary. The 1976 Christopher Street series captures a specific moment in history – a cross section of a thriving community in one of New York’s most dynamic areas. Dressed in the latest fashions, moving confidently and relaxing on street corners, their visible presence is a signifier of a specific period of public consciousness. Gupta is currently included in the major exhibition, Masculinities: Liberation through Photography at the Barbican (London, UK). He will also be the subject of a touring retrospective, From Here to Eternity – a collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery (London, UK) and Ryerson Image Centre (Toronto, Canada), later this year.

Virginia Jaramillo (b. 1939 El Paso, TX, USA) has forged a unique voice, exploring painting through extensive experimentation with material, process and form. The artist’s approach to abstraction has been informed by her early interest in archaeology, science fiction, and cultural mythologies. For The Armory show 2020, Hales Gallery highlights key works from the artist’s expansive and richly varied oeuvre. Her recent body of works, Sites, mark Jaramillo’s return to painting in 2018 with textural surfaces which distinguish fragmented forms. The paintings are an in-depth study into the physical and spiritual life of ruins, focusing on the intricacies of the structures left behind by ancient cultures. This year Jaramillo will have a solo exhibition at The Menil Collection, TX, USA. Jaramillo has also been included in recent blockbuster touring shows We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women and Tate’s Soul of a Nation, opening at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX in April 2020.

Hew Locke (b. 1959 Edinburgh, UK) is dedicated to illuminating histories – highlighting the relevance of the past within the context of contemporary culture and politics. Exceptionally detailed, Wine Dark Sea BB (2016) suggests personal and collective allegories of voyages. The work takes its title from a description of the Mediterranean in Homer’s Odyssey, a phrase which is repeated in an epic poem set in the Caribbean – Omeros by Derek Walcott. The work is wrapped in a ghostly veil, symbolising that we cannot break free from, or ever forget the past. In April 2020, Locke’s expansive solo exhibition, The Man Who Would Be King opens at The Lowry, Salford, UK. Locke’s comprehensive solo show, Here’s the Thing organised by IKON gallery Birmingham, UK; has toured to Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, MI and opens at Colby College Museum of Art, ME February 20, 2020.

Carolee Schneemann (b. 1939 Fox Chase, PA, USA – d. 2019 New Paltz, NY, USA), winner of 2017 Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award, has reshaped discourse on gender, sexuality and the body. Schneemann always described herself as a painter, stating in 1993 that “everything that I have developed has to do with extending visual principles off the canvas.” Her work, from painting-constructions and assemblages to kinetic multimedia installations, transcends the boundaries of media and discipline. In these rare and early painting-constructions, J. & C. (1962) and Tenebration (1960), she has assembled the work from paint as well as everyday materials and artefacts, referring to a whole range of sources, both personal and historical. Schneemann’s work is currently on view in Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection at the Brooklyn Museum (NY, USA) and in the expansive exhibition at Muzeum Susch, Up to and Including Limits: After Carolee Schneemann (Zernez, Switzerland).

Maja Ruznic (b. 1983 Bosnia & Hercegovina) deftly weaves themes of trauma and suffering with mythology and healing, softening the darker subject matter in her work. Playing with ambiguity, her paintings lie on the threshold of form, which Ruznic compares to a thought or a feeling that precedes language. In her 2018 series entitled The Caves are Where the Oldest Go, she paints festive figures who look as if they have returned from an unknown ritual. The blending of bodies creates a unity, they laugh and sob in unison to mourn and curse the dead. Ruznic’s work is currently featured in a group show, The Moon Seemed Lost, at Hales New York and will be the subject of a debut solo exhibition at Hales London later this year. In 2019, Dallas Museum of Art, TX and the US Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Hercegovina acquired her work for their collections.