World Beyond World: A Benefit Exhibition for the Environment

curated by Alex Abedine

Sydney Acosta, Nicholas Bierk, Amanda Marrè Brown, Martyn Cross, Ilse D’Hollander, Helen Frankenthaler, Will Gabaldón, Eiko Gröschl, Jacob Littlejohn, Kylie Manning, Erica Mao, Darby Milbrath, Patricia Iglesias Peco, Erna Mist, Caro Niederer, Eric Oglander, Kelsey Shwetz, Coco Young, Norman Zammitt, Ye Qin Zhu

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Exhibition Dates: January 18 - February 24, 2024

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 18 @ 6PM-8PM

39 White Street, Tribeca

1969 Gallery is pleased to present World Beyond World, curated by Alex Abedine. This group exhibition explores and celebrates visual impressions of the natural world. Spanning 38 years, it brings together 20 international artists whose investigations of color, form, and style elucidate the ongoing legacy of landscape painting.

Rather than treating landscape as a fixed category, the artists in this exhibition approach it as something to be challenged, often moving beyond what is directly observable to rendering the sensation an environment arouses. Guided by figures like Helen Frankenthaler, who have historically captured what we most often take for granted and in a way that escapes language, the exhibition leans towards ambiguity, abstraction, and expression, over realism.

Translating something as simple as shifting light and the stirring breeze – or the irreconcilable sense of scale at the edge of an expansive abyss, the subjects addressed range from the microscopic to the telescopic. From the vignettes of life brimming within Eric Oglander’s Resurrection Jars, a new sculptural aquarium series presented here for the first time, to the abstract color progression of a California sunset by Norman Zammitt, the exhibition crosses earthly realities into the more metaphysical.

Many of the paintings defy empirical observation. Depictions of a figure at the precipice of reality conveyed in Eiko Gröschl’s Home Walking and Erna Mist Pétursdóttir’s Cloud City pay homage to the romance of Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. Meanwhile, unruly, vibrant and unpredictable impressions of landscape appear nearby, as in the work of Jacob Littlejohn and Caro Niederer’s Brülisau. As in a painting by Ilse D'Hollander that appears to capture a glimpsed town viewed from the window of a speeding train, the natural world is rendered as a fleeting impression, both familiar and elusive.

World Beyond World is an exhibition characterized by multiplicity. While some of the artists in this show use established conventions of landscape, others seek out and create new forms of visualizing the natural world. Opting for ambiguity and abstraction over empirical observation or hyper-realism, each artist’s work exemplifies reverence for a subject that remains at the mercy of current and future generations.

In keeping with the theme of the exhibition as a potent reminder that there is only one planet, Earth—the show will be a benefit exhibition in support of Only One, a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in New York with a mission to restore ocean health and tackle the climate crisis.

World Beyond World was made possible with curatorial support from Lola Kramer and generous loans from the Weissman Family Collection.

The exhibition title refers to April Bernard’s recent book of poetry and gestures to her description of “that other world, where nothing human can wreck us.”

For inquiries, please contact: 

Madeline Ehrlich | e: madeline@1969gallery.com

About 1969 Gallery

Founded in September 2016, 1969 is a contemporary art gallery, with a gallery space in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. Through solo / group / external exhibitions and art fair presentations, the Gallery has cultivated the careers of its represented artists and a broader community of artists primarily devoted to painting.

Follow 1969 Gallery on Instagram via @1969gallery.