Pace Welcomes Jo Baer

Pace will present Baer’s work as part of At the Edge of Things: Baer, Corse, Martin from June 7 – August 14, 2019, at 6 Burlington Gardens in London. Focused on the artists’ deep engagement with perception and phenomenology, the exhibition will showcase Minimalist paintings from the early phase of Baer’s career, during which the artist utilized the optical effects of color, light and shadow, and the edges of the canvas to explore the nature of perception.

Trained in Gestalt psychology, Baer’s early non-objective canvases emphasize the physiological experience of painting, while highlighting the illusory potential of a seemingly blank, or flat, space. However, in 1975, concerned with Minimalism’s ability to remain relevant in a changing world, Baer left New York and simultaneously took a radical departure from hard abstraction in favor of an image-based painting practice. Since settling in Amsterdam in 1984, Baer’s work has concentrated on large-scale compositions that straddle abstraction and figuration, integrating visual material, texts, found images and symbols in an uncompromising pursuit of painting’s formal and linguistic capacity to communicate meaning.

Prior to joining Pace, Baer was advised by Art Agency Partners. AAP provides advisory services for living artists as well as artists’ estates and foundations to guide them through all aspects of legacy planning and is committed to serving a broad range of artists including those who have been historically underrepresented.

Allan Schwartzman, Founder and Principal of AAP shared: “Having worked intensively with Jo Baer for a year and a half to create a long-term strategic plan for thoughtful stewardship of her great and important artistic and intellectual output over the last 60 years, and to contextualize her singular and complexly varied art practice and legacy, we are so pleased for Jo to be represented in New York City and globally by such a storied and statured gallery as Pace.”