Brice Marden and Greek Antiquity

THE EXHIBITION

As part of the exhibition series “Divine Dialogues”,&nbsp;American artist Brice Marden presents his work in dialogue with selected antiquities from the permanent collections of the Museum of Cycladic Art. The exhibition under the title “Brice Marden and Greek Antiquity” will be held at the Stathatos Mansion and will run from May 20 to October 3, 2022. This is the first museum exhibition devoted to this renowned artist to be held in Greece, and is organized by the Museum of Cycladic Art in close collaboration with Marden and curator and artist Dimitrios Antonitsis.







Marden, now in his eighties with a career that spans six decades, continues to fascinate with the gestural simplicity of his paintings and drawings. His work draws from art’s long history, combining elements of Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, as well as ancient calligraphy and poetry.

For 50 years, the artist has drawn inspiration from the Greek landscape and antiquity. His relationship with Greece dates back to 1971.&nbsp; Enchanted by the Greek light he and his wife and fellow painter, Helen, bought their first house on Hydra. Since then, they have spent a portion of almost every summer there together. The purity of Hydra’s landscape deeply affected Marden, who observes nature and creates.

The exhibition at the Museum of Cycladic Art will include artworks from a wide range of Marden’s artistic output, revealing a resonance with the metaphysics of ancient Greek heritage. Paintings, drawings, and notebooks that highlight his sharp observation and unique abstract gaze, will be presented in dialogue with selected antiquities from the Museum’s permanent collections, inviting the viewer to interpret the visual vocabulary of this great artist.

Brice Marden was born in 1938 in Bronxville, New York, and lives and works in New York.



His work is included in the collections of museums worldwide including Tate, London; Kunstmuseum Basel; Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Saint Louis Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa.

Notable exhibitions include&nbsp;the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1975);&nbsp;Paintings, Drawings, Etchings 1975–80, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1981, traveled to Whitechapel Art Gallery, London);&nbsp;Cold Mountain, Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1991, traveled to Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Menil Collection, Houston; and Städtisches Kunstmuseum, Bonn, Germany);&nbsp;A Retrospective of Paintings and Drawings, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006–07, traveled to San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin);&nbsp;Morocco, Musée Yves Saint Laurent, Marrakech, Morocco (2019);&nbsp;Think of Them as Spaces: Brice Marden’s Drawings, Menil Collection, Houston (2020); and&nbsp;Brice Marden. Inner Space, Kunstmuseum Basel (2022).

A few words about Brice Marden

Bilingual catalogue in Greek and English published on the occasion of the exhibition “Brice Marden and Greek Antiquity”. The catalogue includes an overview of the works presented in the exhibition along with installation views at the Stathatos Mansion.

Preface by Kassandra Marinopoulou, MCA President and CEO, and introduction by Aphrodite Gonou, MCA Contemporary Art Program Advisor. A discussion between artist Brice Marden and curator Dimitrios Antonitsis is also included in the publication. 

Curated by: Dimitrios Antonitsis Edition coordinator: Maria Basagianni Design: Bend Dimensions: 28 x 21.5 cm Pages: 232 Hardcover

EXHIBITION CATALOG

CONTEMPORARY ART