Simon Lee Gallery
Art Basel 2018

Simon Lee and Perrotin are delighted to announce a new collaboration for Art Basel 2018. The two galleries will utilize their adjoining position at the fair and the unique architecture of their booths to create a shared space over two floors dedicated to major works by French painter Bernard Frize. Over the past two decades, both galleries have held numerous solo exhibitions by Bernard Frize across their London, Paris, New York and Hong Kong spaces. This is the second time the two galleries will collaborate on a joint presentation at the fair, following the successful solo show of Hans Hartung last year.

Perrotin and Simon Lee are also very proud to announce that Bernard Frize will have major retrospective at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou in Paris in June 2019, curated by Angela Lampe.

The recent works that will be on view at Art Basel reveal the tension tangible in Bernard Frize’s work. With a careful and practiced discipline the artist creates works that are simultaneously controlled yet free; at once determined and arbitrary. Frize’s vibrant abstract paintings are decisively process-orientated. Devising an approach that allows the painting to emerge through its implementation, the works develop out of the logic of material procedures instead of a predetermined composition. Paintings are produced in series according to the idea, pattern or rules established by Frize until the idea at hand has been exhausted or achieved to satisfaction. Making use of the ornamental pattern as the objective framework for his work, Frize is often drawn towards unconventional tools and materials.

As Jurriaan Benschop once wrote: “In general, Frize’s paintings have a certain lightness, maybe because of the flat surfaces created through the use of resin, which makes all colours seem to merge into one layer. Or maybe it is because of the brightness of the colours in combination with the economy of means in making them. There are no existential battles visible here. But the lightness or playfulness is mixed with a serious tone and awareness of what it means to paint in an era that is densely populated with images. Frize’s paintings seem to take into account the context they exist in. It is painting that does not ignore what has been done in terms of art history. Even if they appear detached from the world, they are very much the result of looking at and being in our current world. The crucial question is one of credibility.” (Jurriaan Benschop, Seven Colors, March 2018)

Bernard Frize (born in Saint Mandé, France in 1954 lives and works in Paris and Berlin) is one of the most reknowned French painters. A solo exhibition of Bernard Frize will be organized by the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou in Paris in June 2019, curated by Angela Lampe. In 2015, Bernard Frize was awarded the Käthe Kollwitz Prize by the Berlin Akademie der Künste. The Jury members, Ayşe Erkmen, Mona Hatoum and Karin Sander wrote in their statement: “He strives with the utmost sophistication toward the advancement of contemporary painterly abstraction and the development of a topology of painterly gestures and structures.”
Bernard Frize was also awarded the Fred Thieler Prize for Painting, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany in 2011.
Bernard Frize has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions worldwide, including the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa, Portugal; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany; Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany; Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, Denmark; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; S.M.A.C.K., Ghent, Belgium; Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, the Netherlands; Kunstmuseum Basel & Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Switzerland; Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, Germany; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland; Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, Wien, Austria; De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Kunsthalle, Zürich, Switzerland; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy. He has also been
featured in important group exhibitions, including the Sao Paolo Biennial, Venice Biennale, and Sydney Biennial, amongst others.
His work is represented in more than 45 public collections around the world, including the Tate Gallery, London; MNAM/ Centre Pompidou, Paris; MUMOK, Vienna; NMAO the National Museum of Art Osaka; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; the Kunstmuseum, Basel and the Kunsthalle, Zurich.