Frieze Masters 2024, Pace Gallery London

ART FAIR DETAILS

Frieze Masters
Booth C10
Regent's Park
Oct 9 – 13, 2024

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Above: Nathalie Du Pasquier, Untitled, 1999, oil on MDF © Nathalie Du Pasquier

Nathalie Du Pasquier’s solo presentation at Frieze Masters offers a survey spanning nearly thirty years of the artist’s career in drawing and painting, tracing her development from early works, to still lifes of wooden assemblages, to her most recent paintings and works on paper, which depart from structural representations into the realm of pure abstraction.

Du Pasquier’s contribution as a founding member of the Milan-based design collective Memphis in the early 1980s is an apparent through line in her oeuvre, as are a myriad of influences the artist highlights in a curated section of the booth, containing artworks from across centuries that have been a source of creative inspiration for Du Pasquier, alongside works by her contemporaries. Du Pasquier’s presentation is part of the Studio section of Frieze Masters, curated by Sheena Wagstaff, which showcases contemporary artists working in dialogue with historical art.

In 1987, Du Pasquier shifted her focus to painting, rooting her practice in explorations of spatial relationships. Her early works are compositions drawn and painted from arrangements of objects in her studio. Untitled (1999) depicts an assortment of household objects on a plate that plays with flatness and the viewer’s perception of depth in contrast to its distinctive perceived textures—sesame seeds on a pastry, bristles on a brush. Her interest in distortion is most apparent in the recurrent motif of perception through glass, as in the water-filled glass vessels in Untitled (2002–03) and 15 LUGLIO (2003). In the early 2000s, Du Pasquier began constructing three-dimensional wooden assemblages to use as subjects for her paintings. These careful arrangements allowed her to experiment with perspective, light, and shadow. These wooden models have since taken on a life of their own, many becoming autonomous constructions. Since 2016, Du Pasquier has liberated her paintings and drawings from the constraints of built environments, allowing herself the freedom to work from imagined forms, exploring intangible spatial arrangements that read like architectural renderings of impossible structures, as in both new paintings in the presentation called Untitled (2024). This transition reflects her interest in how the mind interprets and organizes visual information and her desire to push the boundaries of her artistic practice. Describing Du Pasquier’s newest works, Wagstaff writes, “...even when distilled to the most direct expression, lines on a monochrome surface, Du Pasquier’s work maintains a spatial intimation and material connection to the world at hand: a staircase, a window, a tap.”

Contained inside the Frieze Masters booth is an artist-curated selection of works that Du Pasquier likes, allowing intimate insight into her sources. This selection includes Chaekgeori, a traditional genre of painting that originated in the 17th century in Korea; practiced predominantly from the 18th to the 19th centuries, Chaekgeori feature meticulously arranged still lifes of books, scholarly objects, and other cultural artifacts, symbolizing the emphasis on neo-Confucianism and scholarly pursuits in this era. Also in Du Pasquier’s cosmos of influences are two collages by Louise Nevelson, whose pioneering use of assemblage and geometric forms across her oeuvre resonates with Du Pasquier’s integration of structural elements into her compositions. These art historical references are complemented by works from Du Pasquier’s contemporaries and friends, including furniture by her partner, British designer George Sowden; a drawing by Lucia Pescador; a print by Alessandra Spranzi; two drawings by Philippe Weisbecker, an artist whose training in architectural drafting parallels themes in Du Pasquier’s own work; and a photograph of a donkey by Pino Guidolotti (Du Pasquier likes animals).

In her 2015 essay "My Influences," Du Pasquier lists sources of inspiration that have shaped her artistic output: "Persian miniatures, Ingres, Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Indian temples, Sanchez Cotán, Sottsass, El Lissitzky, Morandi, Giorgio de Chirico and Savinio, French Medieval miniatures, Le Corbusier, the shape of flowers, the colours of exotic fishes, the beauty of animal life, Japanese prints, the albums of Tintin et Milou. Plus, many more things." [1] In her Frieze Masters presentation, visible influences in the form of works by her muses and contemporaries are juxtaposed with the manifold references to art and cultural history that permeate her works, coalescing in a body of two-dimensional compositions that narrate three decades of innovative drawing and painting.

Current and forthcoming projects for the artist include the exhibition NATHALIE DU PASQUIER and OLIVIER MOSSET – 1+1=3, a joint presentation of Du Pasquier with the Swiss abstract painter, presently on view through November 24 at Kunsthaus Biel Centre d’art Bienne, Switzerland; a special commission as well as an artist’s edition for the Portikus Art Book Festival, Frankfurt, taking place October 17–20, where Du Pasquier will participate in a public conversation with Italian editor and curator Luca Lo Pinto on October 17; and in June 2025, the artist will open a solo exhibition at the Nivola Museum, Orani, Italy.

[1] Nathalie Du Pasquier, “My Influences,” Frieze, Issue 174, October 2015. (opens in a new window) https://www.frieze.com/article/nathalie-du-pasquier-my-influences