Installation view of Beyond Belief by Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet

Beyond Belief

Past
Nov 1 – Dec 21, 2024
Tokyo
 
EXHIBITION DETAILS

Arlene Shechet
Beyond Belief
Nov 1 – Dec 21, 2024

GALLERY

1F; Azabudai Hills Garden Plaza-A
5-8-1 Toranomon, Minato-ku
Tokyo

PRESS

Press Release (ENG)
Press Release (JP)

CONNECT

(opens in a new window) @arleneshechet
(opens in a new window) @pacegallery

Above: Installation view, Arlene Shechet: Beyond Belief, Nov 1 – Dec 21, 2024, Pace Gallery, Tokyo © Arlene Shechet
Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of work by American artist Arlene Shechet at its recently opened Tokyo gallery in Azabudai Hills.

On view from November 1 to December 21, Arlene Shechet: Beyond Belief marks the artist’s first-ever solo show in Japan. Bringing together sculptures, works on paper, and tapestries, this presentation will offer a broad view of Shechet’s diverse body of work. The upcoming exhibition in Tokyo coincides with the final days of her acclaimed presentation Arlene Shechet: Girl Group, featuring six new large-scale outdoor sculptures, at Storm King Art Center in New York.

Born in New York City in 1951 and now based in upstate New York, Shechet is widely known for her genre-defying ceramics and evocatively titled hybrid sculptures that combine steel, clay, and wood. Simultaneously organic and architectural, her works invent new vocabularies and push the boundaries of sculpture and space. Uniting seemingly disparate shapes, colors, and materials, Shechet’s works, while abstract, are imbued with psychological and emotional resonances to invite reflection and empathy. She is represented in major museum collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the National Gallery of Art and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas; the Centre Pompidou in Paris; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.

The artist’s exhibition in Tokyo will feature new and recent works that ride the edge between stillness and motion, much like that of the Japanese art and material culture that has long inspired her. Shechet engages in a spirited back and forth with her works, embracing improvisation and chance as she brings her complex compositions into being. Fusing the language of the natural world with that of built architectural spaces, she makes sculptures that unearth the expressive potential of material, color, and form, forcing us to sit with—and move around—their contradictions.

Beyond Belief will include a mixture of free-standing and small scale sculptures. Standing over six feet tall, Speaking of Drawing (2022), comprising painted hardwood and plywood elements, reflects Shechet’s interest in cultivating a dialogue between geometric and organic forms that fragment and cohere at different moments. Shechet’s interest in the relationship between sculpture and drawing is made ever more apparent with the exhibition’s inclusion of new, never- before-exhibited works on paper produced by the artist this year, as well as a 1997 work on handmade Abaca paper and textile tapestries from 2019. These two- and three-dimensional works will shed light on Shechet’s ability to create texturally and chromatically rich abstractions across mediums, bringing the visual paradoxes of her work into full view. More intimately scaled, vibrant ceramic and steel works from her Together series will also figure prominently in the show.

 
Films

Into the Unknown with Arlene Shechet

American sculptor Arlene Shechet speaks about her process, her interest in unlikely combinations of forms and materials, and how sculpture can create a "window into the unknown."

 

Featured Works

Arlene Shechet, The Hills Are Alive, 2023, glazed ceramic, painted and dyed hardwood, steel, 42" × 37" × 26" (106.7 cm × 94 cm × 66 cm)
Arlene Shechet, Sometimes a Golden Bird, 2024, sand-cast bronze, gold leaf and palladium leaf, 72" × 12" × 12" (182.9 cm × 30.5 cm × 30.5 cm)
Arlene Shechet, Together: For Japan, 2024, glazed ceramic and powder coated steel, 14" × 15" × 13" (35.6 cm × 38.1 cm × 33 cm)
Arlene Shechet, Waking Up: Together, 2024, glazed ceramic and powder coated steel, 17" × 20" × 13" (43.2 cm × 50.8 cm × 33 cm)
Arlene Shechet, Perfect Days, 2024, 20-1/16" × 17-5/8" (51 cm × 44.8 cm), framed
 

Installation Views

Installation view of Beyond Belief by Arlene Shechet
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Installation view of Beyond Belief by Arlene Shechet
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About the Artist

Arlene Shechet is a sculptor known for her effortless combination of disparate elements, precarious and provisional arrangements, and boundary-collapsing visual paradoxes. With gravity-defying work that seems to tilt, contort, bend, and melt, Shechet’s sculptures appear to be set in motion while unearthing the expressive potential of material and forms and forcing us to sit with—and move around—its contradictions.

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Journal

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