Venus Over Manhattan

𝗔 𝗟𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 Published today in artnet news. Head to the link in our bio to read. Our team remains available to answer any questions or assist you with anything you may need during this transition. Warm regards, Adam Lindemann Anna Christina Furney Zachary Fischman & The Team #VenusOverManhattan @v_over_m

In November 2017, Venus Over Manhattan opened Kinetics of Violence: Alexander Calder + Cady Noland, an exhibition curated by Sandra Antelo-Suarez. Comprised of two seminal sculptures by each artist, this exhibition marked the first time works by Alexander Calder and Cady Noland had been presented together. Kinetics of Violence enlisted two radical yet divergent artists whose works confront issues of violence, either directly or indirectly, often through sculptures that employ literal or implied motion. Working over two decades apart, both Calder and Noland produced works amidst the violence of looming totalitarian regimes and brutal forms of social control that indict unchecked reserves of power, engaging in what curator Sandra Antelo-Suarez calls the “kinetics of violence.” On view in the gallery was a rigorously focused presentation of four sculptures. Alexander Calder’s monumental standing mobile Rhombus (1972) – exhibited publicly here for the first time – is comprised of three massive black elements that constitute a base, from which a fourth element protrudes to support a massive red trapezoid, punctured at its center. The red mass spins when pushed, functioning like an updated guillotine that cut through the gallery’s ceiling. Calder produced this work in France in 1972, the same year that he cosponsored a two-page spread in The New York Times to call for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. Also on view in the gallery is Constellation (1943), which Calder produced in Connecticut during World War II. Comprised of seven hand-carved wooden forms connected by lengths of wire, the work reflects Calder’s support of the war effort, working with wood in order to conserve metal. Though Calder’s works do not directly engage with politics, Antelo-Suarez proposed an analysis that accounts for Calder’s activism and suggests a penetration of the political into his work, foregrounding the violence of his sculptures and underlining their relationship to military materials and destructive machines. Installation images of “Kinetics of Violence,” 2017, courtesy of Venus Over Manhattan, New York. @v_over_m #alexandercalder #cadynoland #calder #sculpture #mobile

In November of 2016, Venus Over Manhattan presented H.C. Westermann: See America First – Works from 1953-1980 an exhibition of sculptures and works on paper by American artist, H.C. Westermann (b. 1922, Los Angeles, CA - d. 1981, Danbury, CT). Westermann was an influential post-war artist, though his work historically existed outside the popular mainstream. Audiences and critics have often attempted to situate Westermann’s works within various art historical movements ranging from Surrealism and Minimalism to Neo Dada. Though Westermann incorporated elements from these movements into his work, his oeuvre resists definition; Westermann stands alone as an eccentric art world maverick. Much of Westermann’s work speaks to his own personal history, specifically his time serving in the U.S. Marine Corps during both World War II and the Korean War. Westerman’s view of America was both nostalgic and romantic, and his work reflects his yearning for an era that favored traditional values. The America that emerged after World War II stood as a global super power that thrived on growth and abundance, spawning a new culture in a changed nation. Pop artists at this time, such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, were influenced by the proliferation of new media and mass culture. Westermann chose to use his skills as a carpenter to confront the brutal realities of his time at war and the general post-war psyche. Often with notes of humor and irony, Westermann’s sculptures engage with a sense of loss both in his own life and of the values of pre-World War II America. See America First takes its name from a series of prints and unique works on paper made by Westermann in 1968. The series was inspired by a road trip taken across the country in 1964. It also refers to the importance of nationhood in Westermann’s overall body of work. The exhibition will included roughly 80 works by Westermann, including sculptures, works on paper, and a series of 19 illustrated letters written to the artist’s longtime dealer Allan Frumkin. Installation images of “See America First,” 2016, courtesy of Venus Over Manhattan, New York. @v_over_m #hcwestermann #seeamericafirst #america #sculpture

In October of 2014, Venus Over Manhattan presented Maurizio Cattelan: Cosa Nostra, the first major exhibition of Maurizio Cattelan’s work since Maurizio Cattelan: All, the 2011-2012 Guggenheim retrospective, and the artist’s subsequent retirement. Curated by Adam Lindemann, this exhibition showcased a range of works from Cattelan’s career, including many of the artist’s most recognizable iconography that has made him one of the most idiosyncratic and unique of his generation. A direct response to All, Cosa Nostra utilized a distinct and dramatic exhibition design in each presenting venue, highlighting the artist’s works as powerful, individual objects. Cattelan’s body of work forces his viewers to consider their position within the world. His absurdist compositions are unsettling both physically and psychologically. This is most profoundly realized in the works which display taxidermied animals in a variety of environments. Throughout his career Cattelan has reveled in the interplay between good and evil, humor and irreverence. Installation images of “Cosa Nostra,” 2014, courtesy of Venus Over Manhattan, New York. @v_over_m #venusovermanhattan #mauriziocattelan #cosanostra #sculpture

🎉 Happy Birthday Peter Saul! 🎉 Today we celebrate Peter Saul’s birthday, an artist whose brilliant and inventive career has pushed the envelope for decades. Saul’s work is characterized by a relentless challenge to societal norms, a vibrant color palette, and a cutting-edge sense of humor. His work has left an indelible effect on the landscape of contemporary painting. Join us in celebrating Peter Saul today, and wishing him the best for this next year! 📸: 1. Portrait of Peter Saul. Photo: Tim Davis 2. Photo of Peter Saul’s studio 3. Detail of “Humble Cowboy,” 1981-85, acrylic on canvas. 79 x 80 3/4 in 4. Portrait of Peter Saul. Photo: Eric Chakeen 5. Detail of “View of San Francisco,” 1979, acrylic on canvas, 67 1/2 x 131 in 6. Installation view of Peter Saul: Early Works on Paper, Venus Over Manhattan, New York 7. “New York Number 1,” 2021, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 96in 8. Detail of “Self Portrait Thinking About Art,” 2023, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 84in 9. “Bowl of Flowers with Insects,” 2020, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 84in 10. Photo of Peter Saul’s studio 11. “Trust Me,” 2020, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 50in #petersaul #petersaulpainting #petersaulpainting #venusovermanhattan @v_over_m @peter.saul.official

In May of 2018, Venus opened “Giacometti, Twombly, West: Sculptures of Existence,” curated by Dieter Buchhart. The exhibition explored the shared tactile quality in the work of Franz West and his predecessors, Alberto Giacometti and Cy Twombly. Despite their biographical and geographical differences, the oeuvres of Giacometti, Twombly, and West are bound by a rawness inherent to their materials. The show comprised over fifty works, including sculptures, wall works, and works on paper. In his obituary for Franz West, Jerry Saltz linked the work of these three artists: “using papier-mâché, plaster, wire, wood, straw, and who-knows-what, topped off with scads of white paint, West made medium-sized and portable sculptures that come out of the sketchy semi-dead-and-alive figures of Giacometti, (…) Cy Twombly’s weird white anti-classical sculptures, and his own high disregard for high art pretensions.” Installation images of “Giacometti, Twombly, West: Sculptures of Existence,” 2018, courtesy Venus Over Manhattan, New York. @v_over_m #venusovermanhattan #franzwest #albertogiacometti #cytwombly #dieterbuchhart #giacometti #twombly #sculpture

In May of 2016, Venus opened “Andy Warhol: Little Electric Chairs.” The exhibition presented eighteen important paintings from one of Warhol’s most significant and influential series of the 1960s: “Death and Disaster.” With the Death and Disaster series, Warhol explored the mass media’s exploitation of tragic imagery in post-war America. Warhol refers to this phenomenon directly with the “Little Electric Chairs,” a series whose source was a news wire service image from January 13, 1953, announcing the historic death sentences of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in upstate New York. Warhol began producing Electric Chairs paintings in 1963—the same year that capital punishment was banned in the state, and the chair carried out New York’s final execution. Produced between 1964 and 1965, all of the works in the series are identical in size and subject matter, though each silkscreen is unique in its color and ink saturation. The exhibition at Venus paid homage to the inaugural presentation of the works that took place at the Jerrold Morris International Gallery in Toronto in March of 1965. Installation images courtesy Venus Over Manhattan, New York and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (ARS), New York. @v_over_m #venusovermanhattan #andywarhol #andywarholart #littleelectricchairs #deathanddisasterseries #warhol #silkscreen #andywarholfoundation

In April of 2014, Venus opened “Are Your Motives Pure? Raymond Pettibon: Surfers 1985-2013.” Since the 1970s, Raymond Pettibon has painted a vast array of images depicting American culture, from sports to religion to politics. The most poetic and revealing of Pettibon’s symbols may be the surfer, the solitary longboarder challenging a massive wave. “Are Your Motives Pure?” was the first exhibition organized to focus exclusively on Pettibon’s surfer paintings. The show brought together forty works spanning a quarter century of the artist’s career. Among the works were early small-scale monochrome India ink paintings, as well as a group of rare, large-scale paintings measuring up to nearly 10 feet wide. As a special addition to the show, Pettibon painted a 10-foot mural of a surfer directly on a gallery wall. Installation photos of “Are your motives pure? Raymond Pettibon: Surfers 1985-2013” at Venus Over Manhattan, New York, 2014 @v_over_m #venusovermanhattan #raymondpettibon #raymondpettibonsurfers #surfers

In November of 2012, Venus opened “Where is Jack Goldstein,” an exhibition designed to invite further exploration of the artist’s enigmatic life and work. Featuring 13 paintings and one 3-minute film on loop, the show was one of the first to focus in depth on Goldstein’s early works. Holland Cotter of the New York Times reviewed the show, writing: “individually the paintings are beautiful, cold, coruscating things. What’s striking, though, is how the show’s installation amplifies the theatricality of Goldstein’s end-time vision. The darkened space, with pictures spotlighted, has the atmosphere of a bunker, or a cave from which you glimpse distant catastrophes, or catastrophic celebrations. A mood of unease is increased by a piped-in soundtrack of loved-‘em-and-lost-‘em Patsy Cline songs, music that Goldstein is said to have played obsessively in his studio, and by the presence of a single 1975 Goldstein film. Three minutes long, it consists entirely of the looping image of a German shepherd barking furiously at the camera, Cerberus guarding the dark realm where Goldstein felt at home.” In June of 2013, the exhibition was presented at Galerie Perrotin, under the title “Où est Jack Goldstein”. @v_over_m #venusovermanhattan #jackgoldstein #whereisjackgoldstein #calarts #picturesgeneration

In November of 2013, Venus opened “Calder Shadows,” an exhibition of twelve rare Alexander Calder mobiles and stabiles created between 1929 and 1974. Presented in darkness, each sculpture was lit so that its shadow became a central part of the work. “How can art be realized?” Calder asked. “Out of volumes, motion, spaces bounded by the great space, the universe… Not extractions, but abstractions. Abstractions that are like nothing in life except in their manner of reacting.” The design of this exhibition uniquely showcased the “manner of reacting” that sets Calder’s work apart. “Calder Shadows” was organized in collaboration with the Calder Foundation. Installation video courtesy Venus Over Manhattan, New York. © 2025 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York #venusovermanhattan #alexandercalder #calder #sculpture #calderfoundation @v_over_m @calderfoundation

In 2012, Venus launched its first show, titled “À Rebours.” The exhibition took its name from Joris-Karl Huysmans’ 1884 novel, which tells the story of an eccentric aristocrat who flees to the countryside, immersing himself in an art collection which he keeps in the dark.  The show was staged in similar darkness, featuring impressive works by Andy Warhol, David Hammons, Gustave Moreau, Salvador Dalí, and more. The show contained more than fifty works, spanning the 19th century to present, and explored the idea of “à rebours,” or “against the grain.” Images: Installation views of “À Rebours,” Venus Over Manhattan, 2012 @v_over_m #venusovermanhattan

Wishing Susumu Kamijo a Happy Birthday! Today we celebrate Susumu Kamijo, whose solo exhibition “Fish & Flowers” is currently on view at the gallery. Known for his vibrant, graphic style, Kamijo continues to push the boundaries between figuration and abstraction. Join us in wishing Susumu a wonderful birthday—and be sure to catch his exhibition on view at our 39 Great Jones Street location through July 18th. #SusumuKamijo #FishAndFlowers #VenusOverManhattan @susumukamijo @v_over_m