Nicolas Party, Red Forest
at Hauser & Wirth, Hong Kong
June 30 — September 24, 2022
15-16/F, H Queen’s
80 Queen’s Road Central
Central, Hong Kong
Best known for his unique approach to landscapes, portraits and still lifes created in pastel, critically admired New York-based Swiss artist Nicolas Party directs his idiosyncratic choice of medium toward otherworldly depictions of objects, both natural and manmade. Beginning 30 June 2022, Hauser & Wirth will debut ‘Red Forest,’ Nicolas Party’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, in which Party looks to the five elements of the material world as his starting point: wood, fire, earth, metal and water.
Nicolas Party, Portrait (detail), 2022, photo by Adam Reich
Nicolas Party, Triptych
at Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan
April 16 — June 27, 2022
Via Alessandro Manzoni, 12
20121 Milano MI, Italy
The Poldi Pezzoli Museum, as part of its exhibition line aimed at encouraging the dialogue between ancient and contemporary, together with the Kaufmann Repetto Gallery, is pleased to present the personal exhibition Nicolas Party, Triptych, running from April 16 to June 27, 2022.
Henni Alftan, Ann Craven, Nicolas Party, and Matthew Wong in “UNNATURAL NATURE: POST-POP LANDSCAPES” Group Show
at Acquavella Galleries
April 15–May 25, 2022 in Palm Beach / April 21–June 10, 2022 in New York
8 East 79th Street
New York, NY 10075
340 Royal Poinciana Way, Suite M309
Palm Beach, FL 33480
Curated by Todd Bradway Featuring paintings by Henni Alftan, Hurvin Anderson, Gideon Appah, Jules de Balincourt, Hayley Barker, Adrian Berg, Jennifer Coates, Ann Craven, Lois Dodd, Maureen Gallace, Sky Glabush, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Daniel Heidkamp, David Hockney, Yvonne Jacquette, Jon Joanis, Yuka Kashihara, Alex Katz, Makiko Kudo, Patricia Leite, John McAllister, William Monk, Laurie Nye, Nicolas Party, Lisa Sanditz, Wayne Thiebaud, Nicole Wittenberg, and Matthew Wong.
A major artist of our time, Nicolas Party is known for his meticulously composed paintings, his painted sculptures and his installations drenched in saturated colours. Through over 100 works and a series of large-scale murals realized in situ, he unveils a dreamlike exhibition themed on nature at the MMFA.
L’heure mauve (Mauve Twilight) brings together watercolours, pastels and sculptures by Party, including about 20 recent works yet to be exhibited. The landscapes, portraits and still lifes, at once fantastical and subtle, illustrate the complex and often inextricable ties that bind humans to nature. The whole is integrated with temporary murals created in oil pastels, such that the Museum’s galleries become the canvas onto which this visual artist and muralist – cum curator and exhibition designer – expresses his poetic imagination. In all, it is a celebratory as well as solemn meditation on nature, its representation in art and its future.
The artist’s creations are set against some 50 works from the Museum’s wide-ranging collection. Painstakingly chosen by the artist, they include paintings by Gustave Courbet, Ferdinand Hodler, Henri Fantin-Latour, Nicolas Poussin, Otto Dix and Lawren S. Harris. Incidentally, the title of the exhibition references an iconic painting by Canadian Symbolist painter Ozias Leduc. “Mauve twilight” – that fleeting moment when the fading light casts purple hues over the landscape – resonates powerfully with Party, who sees in it an aura of mystery and beauty. Together, the works and the setting of this large-scale exhibition thus weave a touching and hopeful story about the fate of the natural world.
Nicolas Party, Portrait with a Parrot, 2021, soft pastel on pastel card, 23⅝ × 23⅝ inches; 60 × 60 cm
Artists play a role in defining an era, capturing its mood and energy through beat or brushstroke. Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined brings together an intergenerational group of visual artists including Cecily Brown, Lauren Halsey, Rashid Johnson, Takashi Murakami, and Ed Ruscha into dialogue with iconic musicians from the last three decades including Dr. Dre, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Nine Inch Nails, and Lady Gaga.
To mark the 30th anniversary of Interscope Records, co-founder Jimmy Iovine, current chairman John Janick, vice chairman Steve Berman, and music executive Josh Abraham revisited the label’s history of groundbreaking music through the lens of visual art, an idea that was sparked by label partner Justin Lubliner. They invited artists to select albums and songs from Interscope’s catalogue and fostered exchanges with musicians to generate resonant pairings. The exhibition includes over 50 works, providing a fresh perspective on influential music for the present moment.
Book Launch and Conversation | Nicolas Party: Rovine
November 13th, 2021
5 PM
Please join Swiss Institute for a conversation between Nicolas Party and SI Director Simon Castets in celebration of the launch of Nicolas Party: Rovine, a new catalogue published on the occasion of the artist’s first major monographic exhibition in Europe at Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano (MASI).
Unfolding across five distinct environments in MASI’s largest exhibition hall, Rovine (meaning “ruins”) presented and gave shape to recurring motifs in Party’s practice: still lives, portraits, rocky views, caves and landscapes. Across these works, noted for their chromatic inventiveness, formal precision and masterful use of trompe l’oeil, references to art history abound. The influence of artists from Arnold Böcklin to Georgia O’Keefe to lesser known figures such as portraitist Rosalba Carriera and symbolist William Degouve Nunques course through the exhibition and publication. The conversation between Party and Castets will explore such topics and figures, and more broadly consider Party’s singular aesthetic, tracing back to the artist’s first institutional exhibition in the US, which was held at Swiss Institute in 2012.
Nicolas Party: Rovine is published by Sheidegger & Speiss and Edizioni Casagrande, and designed by Studio Marie Lusa, featuring contributions by Tobia Bezzola, Michele Robecchi and Francesca Bernasconi.
To RSVP, please email rsvp@swissinstitute.net. Please note: events at Swiss Institute are limited capacity and entry is on a first-come, first-served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee entry.
Nicolas Party: Draw the Curtain
at Hirschhorn Museum, Washington D.C.
September 18, 2021–Spring 2022
The exterior of the Hirshhorn’s iconic cylindrical building will be the site of internationally renowned Swiss artist Nicolas Party’s newest artwork. Draw the Curtain (2021) will wrap 360 degrees around the temporary scaffolding that encases the Museum building and will span a circumference of 829 feet, becoming the artist’s largest work to date. An original pastel painting digitally collaged and printed onto scrim, the site-specific commission will transform the Hirshhorn’s façade into a monumental canvas that stands out against the landscape of predominantly neoclassical buildings on the National Mall. The work will be on view through spring 2022 while the building’s envelope undergoes critical repairs.
Draw the Curtain will comprise several anonymous faces partially hidden by draped curtains, gazing directly at the viewer no matter their vantage point around the building. Known for his unique visual language that simultaneously celebrates and challenges conventions of representational painting, Party steeps this work in art-historical technique and symbolism. The featured portraits, painted in black and white, are based on classical sculpture, while the curtains, painted in shades of green, blue, yellow, and red, are sampled mostly from 17th-century Dutch paintings. Painted in the tradition of trompe l’oeil, the work addresses themes of dupery and illusion and conjures a scenographic set. It invites passersby to peek backstage behind the “curtain” on the National Mall and examine both the collections housed within the Smithsonian and the contents of the distinctive government buildings dotting the surrounding landscape. Draw the Curtain reminds the viewer of the opacity of these spaces, while inviting them to consider what lies behind the façades of the buildings in the nation’s capital.
Draw the Curtain will mark the second time Party’s artwork has been shown in Washington; the Hirshhorn hosted the artist’s Washington debut in 2017 with his solo exhibition sunrise, sunset.
Nicolas Party, Cave, 2020, Courtesy the Artist und Kaufmann Repetto, Milan / New York, Photo: Adam Reich
Nicolas Party | Stage Fright
Sep. 12, 2021 – Jan. 9, 2022
The artist Nicolas Party (* 1980 in Lausanne, Switzerland) has created a work that examines painting and its history and reception down to the smallest detail: How is light generated? How do colors or brushstrokes work together? In the exhibition Stage Fright, he will extend his painting across the entire exhibition space with a monumental, site-specific installation: Party will paint the walls and ceiling of the large domed hall and create a spectacular green grotto. His immersive mural refers to countless art-historical predecessors that depict underground caves. At the same time, it becomes a breathtaking and atmospheric spatial experience for visitors. In addition, the Kestner Gesellschaft will present a new series of nine portraits for the first time. The portraits use painting to pose currently relevant questions. Party’s fairytale-like, surreal imagery exists between the poles of likeness and representation, depiction and abstraction, observation and imagination.
Reggie Burrows Hodges, Big We'll, 2020, acrylic and pastel on linen, 54 × 50 inches, 137.2 × 127 cm; 55 × 51 × 2 inches, 139.7 × 129.5 × 5.1 cm (framed)
and I will wear you in my heart of heart
FLAG Art Foundation
545 West 25th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10001
May 1—August 13, 2021
Click HERE for a virtual tour of the exhibition by Eazel
The FLAG Art Foundation presents and I will wear you in my heart of heart, a group exhibition of contemporary paintings and textiles on view May 1-August 13, 2021, on its 9th floor. Centering on a gesture of care, the exhibition explores the myriad ways in which 35 artists evoke tenderness through depictions of lovers and friends, familial exchanges, moments of solitude, and even a cowboy and his pastel pink unicorn. Heart of heart includes recent and new works created for the exhibition that embody the cross-generational resurgence in figuration as a mode of exploring identity, cultural histories, and personal experiences. Artists include:
Derrick Adams
Gareth Cadwallader
Jordan Casteel
Will Cotton
Ann Craven
Somaya Critchlow
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Anthony Cudahy
John Currin
Cynthia Daignault
TM Davy
Peter Doig
Carroll Dunham
Louis Fratino Jay
Lynn Gomez
Jenna Gribbon
Caleb Hahne
Sally J. Han
Hilary Harkness
Reggie Burrows Hodges
Ernst Yohji Jaeger
Sanya Kantarovsky
Arghavan Khosravi
Danielle McKinney
GaHee Park
Nicolas Party
Cheryl Pope
Tajh Rust
Joan Semmel
Alessandro Teoldi
Honor Titus
Salman Toor
Anna Weyant
Lisa Yuskavage
Billie Zangewa
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The FLAG Art Foundation is limiting the number of visitors in its space at any one time. Appointments are encouraged to reserve a time slot for your visit, however, walk-ins are welcome if the space is not at capacity.
Dike Blair, oil paint on Priority Mail envelope, 12 1⁄2 × 9 1⁄2 inches; 31.7 × 24.1 cm
Dike Blair, Paul Lee, and Nicolas Party in
USPS Mail Art Fundraiser This Long Century
August 25–September 8, 2020
In order to raise funds for the support of the USPS, This Long Century is raffling of a series of unique mail art works by 60 artists, including Dike Blair, Paul Lee, and Nicolas Party. To enter, purchase an $11 book of stamps from the USPS and email your receipt to info@thislongcentury.com
Terms & Conditions:
– Buy an $11 book of stamps from the USPS
– Receipt should be dated between Aug 25 – Sept 08
– E-mail the receipt to info@thislongcentury.com
– Include your full name and mailing address
– One entry per person
– One artwork per winner
– You must currently reside in the U.S.
– Winners drawn on 09/08/20
Installation view of Nicolas Party: Pastel at The FLAG Art Foundation, 2019.
Photography by Steven Probert.
Artist Talk: Louis Fratino, Loie Hollowell, Nicolas Party, Billy Sullivan,
and Robin F. Williams in Conversation, Moderated by Glenn Fuhrman
December 10th, 2019
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Hauser & Wirth Publishers Bookshop
548 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011
With Charles Avery, Katherine Bradford, Peter Doig, Alex Dordoy, Loie Hollowell, Matthew Day Jackson, Claudia Martínez Garay, Benny Merris, William Monk, Ciarán Murphy, Rosalind Nashashibi, Lucy Skaer, Matthias Weischer, and Letha Wilson
Mathew Cerletty, Print, 2018, inkjet and watercolor on Epson Hot Press Bright 330gsm paper, 18 × 18 inches; 45.7 × 45.7 cm
Mathew Cerletty, Marley Freeman and Nicolas Party in 2019 White Columns Benefit Auction Exhibition
May 18–May 29, 2019
Auction: May 29 at 6:30 pm
91 Horatio Street
New York, NY 10014
Opening in November 2018, M WOODS presents a solo exhibition by Swiss artist Nicolas Party. Working across painting, pastel, sculpture, video and installation, Party is renowned for a deep sense of site specificity and temporality in his projects, which often feature hand-painted murals that exist on gallery walls only for the duration of an exhibition. Within these painted environments sit two and three dimensional works which, through a style and colour system unique to the artist, offer a contemporary take on traditional subjects such as still life, portraiture, landscape and the sculptural bust.
Party’s exhibition at M WOODS will be his first at a non-profit institution in Asia and his largest to date, bringing together recent works with a suite of new sculptures and wallpaintings created on site at the museum.
