David Zwirner exhibits the last paintings by Robert Ryman
Robert Ryman - Untitled - 2010
From 10 February to 26 March 2022, David Zwirner Gallery in New York is exhibiting the last paintings created by Robert Ryman (1930-2019) before his death.
Source: David Zwirner. Image: Robert Ryman, "Untitled", 2010 © Robert Ryman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
"When I begin, I’m never quite sure what the result is going to be. The process is actually making the painting, that’s all. I don’t have a plan beforehand (…) When I start doing it, I discover things that I hadn’t thought could be there; I changeit later on, until I end up with the final result, the final painting which I consider to be finished. That’s done"Robert Ryman, to ArtForum, 1971
Like so many other artists who emerged in the 1960s, Robert Ryman (1930-2019) has traditionally been framed between Minimalism and Conceptual Art, and, like many other artists of his time, Ryman never felt identified by those labels. As David Zwirner explains in a press note, Ryman "neither reveled in the emotive qualities of gesturalism nor sought to eradicate the painterly mark; rather, his works are novel and sensitive explorations of the visual, material, and experiential qualities of his media that exist in a dialogue with their surroundings”. Perhaps Ryman's "misalignment" with the predominant movements of his time was due to his unusual approach to painting. Ryman was not academically trained, but became interested in visual art when he went to work as a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, where, incidentally, he coincided with a receptionist named Sol LeWitt and a security guard and lift operator named Dan Flavin.
"Robert Ryman: Last Paintings" presents eight small-scale paintings in which the dense layers of white and pale tones -usual throughout Ryman's career- partially reveal backgrounds of vivid colors, reviving a practice typical of the early years of his artistic production.
Coinciding with the opening and closing dates of this exhibition of works by Robert Ryman, David Zwirner is presenting in Paris "Sauve qui peut!” (Run for your life), an exhibition of works by R. Crumb, Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Sophie Crumb.

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