Peter Alexander
PACE GALLERY
540 West 25th Street,NEW YORK NY 10001
Tel 212.929.7000 Fax 212.929.7001 e-mail:
Multiple location : Beijing Hong Kong New York NY(4) Palm Beach FL Menlo Park CA London
Feb 11 > Mar 19, 2022
New York – Pace Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of pioneering Light and Space artist Peter Alexander’s
works at its 540 West 25th Street gallery. On view from January 13 through February 19, 2022, this exhibition will feature
works created by the artist from 2011 to 2020. This is the first presentation of Alexander’s recent works since his
passing in 2020 and his first solo exhibition at Pace Gallery. His work has previously been featured at Pace’s galleries in
Seoul and Hong Kong and at Lightness of Being, a dedicated presentation to Light and Space artists at Art Basel Miami
Beach in 2018.
Alexander, born in Los Angeles in 1939, rose to great prominence in the 1960s with his cast polyester resin sculptures. Having nurtured a lifelong love of surfing, he used resin to fix his boards for many years. Alexander’s decision to utilize resin as an artistic material in the early 1960s was something of an epiphany. He had poured the material into a Dixie Cup to seal his surfboard, but found that over time the resin hardened into a translucent circle. This realization heralded the creation of Alexander’s iconic polyester resin sculptures that would position him as a key figure in the Los Angeles art scene and a vanguard of the California Light and Space movement.
Throughout his career, Alexander found inspiration for his art through a multitude of sources, including the landscape of his native California, geometry, the phenomenological effects of color and light, and perspectival nuance. His work has been likened to that of Pace artists such as James Turrell, Mary Corse, and Robert Irwin. He maintained a deep interest in the work of Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, particularly his ability to embed his works with “that certain quality of light, that quality of being under water.” Mark Rothko’s approach to color and mark making also served as a cornerstone for Alexander’s practice, and he once said, “I’ve always loved Rothko and the sensibility [within the edges he creates], so I decided to cast objects that had those kinds of edges that disappeared.”
This surplus of inspiration manifested itself into the translucently meditative sculptures for which he remains best known. In addition to sculpture, Alexander’s practice also spanned painting, drawing, lithography, and polaroid photography. When examining his work in these alternate mediums, the artist’s attentiveness to color becomes incredibly evident. In a 1971 interview, Alexander said, “Part of the concern that I have with color is that a very slight varying color could alter how you felt about it or you felt toward it or the kind of vibrations it sent off.” Highlights in Pace’s presentation include the dynamic freestanding sculpture 9/22/17 Jet Black Needle (2017); the expansive and vibrant wall work Heard it Through the Grapevine (2019), rendered at a rare scale for the artist; and a group of translucent and ethereal sculptures rendered in block, box, and wedge forms.
Over the course of his career, Alexander showed his work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Diego Museum of Art, California; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and other international institutions. His work can be found in many of these collections as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum, California; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; and other major museums.
Concurrent to this presentation, Alexander’s work is included in Light, Space, Surface: Works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts. Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this exhibition explores the art of Light and Space and is on view through March 20, 2022. His work is also highlighted in Light & Space—a group exhibition focused on the Light and Space movement— at Copenhagen Contemporary through September 4, 2022.
Peter Alexander (American, b. 1939, Los Angeles; d. 2020, Los Angeles) is recognized for his multidisciplinary practice through which he explored light and color. Originally interested in architecture, he attended the University of Pennsylvania (1957–1960), the Architectural Association in London (1960–1962), University of California, Berkeley (1962–1963), and eventually studied under Richard Diebenkorn at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he earned a BA in 1965 and MFA in 1966. Alexander rose to artistic prominence in the 1960s, cementing himself as a key figure in California's Light and Space movement. Alexander is known for his geometric and wall-mounted sculptures that emanated light from within. The artist first used resin while repairing a surfboard and, taken with its transparency and water-like quality, he began employing the material to create sculptures. Renowned for his work with this material throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he stopped using polyester resin in 1972 due to its toxicity, shifting to painting, drawing, and printmaking. He returned to resin in the mid-2000s when he began working with polyurethane. Alexander’s work was heavily influenced by his surroundings growing up in Southern California. He is well-known for his box- and wedge-shaped sculptures, which he referred to as rooms the viewer could enter. Over the course of his six-decade career, Alexander became a master of creating, bending, and manipulating light while bringing the viewer into the realm of the object itself.
Pace is a leading international art gallery representing some of the most influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century, holding decades-long relationships with Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. Pace enjoys a unique U.S. heritage spanning East and West coasts through its early support of artists central to the Abstract Expressionist and Light and Space movements.
Since its founding by Arne Glimcher in 1960, Pace has developed a distinguished legacy as an artist-first gallery that mounts seminal historical and contemporary exhibitions. Under the current leadership of President and CEO Marc Glimcher, Pace continues to support its artists and share their visionary work with audiences worldwide by remaining at the forefront of innovation. Now in its seventh decade, the gallery advances its mission through a robust global program—comprising exhibitions, artist projects, public installations, institutional collaborations, performances, and interdisciplinary projects. Pace has a legacy in art bookmaking and has published over five hundred titles in close collaboration with artists, with a focus on original scholarship and on introducing new voices to the art historical canon. The gallery has also spearheaded explorations into the intersection of art and technology through its new business models, exhibition interpretation tools, and representation of artists cultivating advanced studio practices. Pace’s presence in Silicon Valley since 2016 has bolstered its longstanding support of experimental practices and digital artmaking. As part of its commitment to innovative, technologically engaged artists within and beyond its program Pace launched its own dedicated NFT platform, Pace Verso, in November 2021. The gallery’s past NFT projects have spotlighted digital works by Glenn Kaino, DRIFT, Lucas Samaras, Simon Denny, Urs Fischer, John Gerrard, and other artists.
Today, Pace has nine locations worldwide including London, Geneva, a strong foothold in Palo Alto, and two galleries in New York—its headquarters at 540 West 25th Street, which welcomed almost 120,000 visitors and programmed 20 shows in its first six months, and an adjacent 8,000 sq. ft. exhibition space at 510 West 25th Street. Pace was one of the first international galleries to establish outposts in Asia, where it operates permanent gallery spaces in Hong Kong and Seoul, as well as an office and viewing room in Beijing. In 2020, Pace opened temporary exhibition spaces in East Hampton and Palm Beach, with continued programming on a seasonal basis.
Alexander, born in Los Angeles in 1939, rose to great prominence in the 1960s with his cast polyester resin sculptures. Having nurtured a lifelong love of surfing, he used resin to fix his boards for many years. Alexander’s decision to utilize resin as an artistic material in the early 1960s was something of an epiphany. He had poured the material into a Dixie Cup to seal his surfboard, but found that over time the resin hardened into a translucent circle. This realization heralded the creation of Alexander’s iconic polyester resin sculptures that would position him as a key figure in the Los Angeles art scene and a vanguard of the California Light and Space movement.
Throughout his career, Alexander found inspiration for his art through a multitude of sources, including the landscape of his native California, geometry, the phenomenological effects of color and light, and perspectival nuance. His work has been likened to that of Pace artists such as James Turrell, Mary Corse, and Robert Irwin. He maintained a deep interest in the work of Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, particularly his ability to embed his works with “that certain quality of light, that quality of being under water.” Mark Rothko’s approach to color and mark making also served as a cornerstone for Alexander’s practice, and he once said, “I’ve always loved Rothko and the sensibility [within the edges he creates], so I decided to cast objects that had those kinds of edges that disappeared.”
This surplus of inspiration manifested itself into the translucently meditative sculptures for which he remains best known. In addition to sculpture, Alexander’s practice also spanned painting, drawing, lithography, and polaroid photography. When examining his work in these alternate mediums, the artist’s attentiveness to color becomes incredibly evident. In a 1971 interview, Alexander said, “Part of the concern that I have with color is that a very slight varying color could alter how you felt about it or you felt toward it or the kind of vibrations it sent off.” Highlights in Pace’s presentation include the dynamic freestanding sculpture 9/22/17 Jet Black Needle (2017); the expansive and vibrant wall work Heard it Through the Grapevine (2019), rendered at a rare scale for the artist; and a group of translucent and ethereal sculptures rendered in block, box, and wedge forms.
Over the course of his career, Alexander showed his work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Diego Museum of Art, California; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and other international institutions. His work can be found in many of these collections as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum, California; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; and other major museums.
Concurrent to this presentation, Alexander’s work is included in Light, Space, Surface: Works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts. Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this exhibition explores the art of Light and Space and is on view through March 20, 2022. His work is also highlighted in Light & Space—a group exhibition focused on the Light and Space movement— at Copenhagen Contemporary through September 4, 2022.
Peter Alexander (American, b. 1939, Los Angeles; d. 2020, Los Angeles) is recognized for his multidisciplinary practice through which he explored light and color. Originally interested in architecture, he attended the University of Pennsylvania (1957–1960), the Architectural Association in London (1960–1962), University of California, Berkeley (1962–1963), and eventually studied under Richard Diebenkorn at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he earned a BA in 1965 and MFA in 1966. Alexander rose to artistic prominence in the 1960s, cementing himself as a key figure in California's Light and Space movement. Alexander is known for his geometric and wall-mounted sculptures that emanated light from within. The artist first used resin while repairing a surfboard and, taken with its transparency and water-like quality, he began employing the material to create sculptures. Renowned for his work with this material throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he stopped using polyester resin in 1972 due to its toxicity, shifting to painting, drawing, and printmaking. He returned to resin in the mid-2000s when he began working with polyurethane. Alexander’s work was heavily influenced by his surroundings growing up in Southern California. He is well-known for his box- and wedge-shaped sculptures, which he referred to as rooms the viewer could enter. Over the course of his six-decade career, Alexander became a master of creating, bending, and manipulating light while bringing the viewer into the realm of the object itself.
Pace is a leading international art gallery representing some of the most influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century, holding decades-long relationships with Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. Pace enjoys a unique U.S. heritage spanning East and West coasts through its early support of artists central to the Abstract Expressionist and Light and Space movements.
Since its founding by Arne Glimcher in 1960, Pace has developed a distinguished legacy as an artist-first gallery that mounts seminal historical and contemporary exhibitions. Under the current leadership of President and CEO Marc Glimcher, Pace continues to support its artists and share their visionary work with audiences worldwide by remaining at the forefront of innovation. Now in its seventh decade, the gallery advances its mission through a robust global program—comprising exhibitions, artist projects, public installations, institutional collaborations, performances, and interdisciplinary projects. Pace has a legacy in art bookmaking and has published over five hundred titles in close collaboration with artists, with a focus on original scholarship and on introducing new voices to the art historical canon. The gallery has also spearheaded explorations into the intersection of art and technology through its new business models, exhibition interpretation tools, and representation of artists cultivating advanced studio practices. Pace’s presence in Silicon Valley since 2016 has bolstered its longstanding support of experimental practices and digital artmaking. As part of its commitment to innovative, technologically engaged artists within and beyond its program Pace launched its own dedicated NFT platform, Pace Verso, in November 2021. The gallery’s past NFT projects have spotlighted digital works by Glenn Kaino, DRIFT, Lucas Samaras, Simon Denny, Urs Fischer, John Gerrard, and other artists.
Today, Pace has nine locations worldwide including London, Geneva, a strong foothold in Palo Alto, and two galleries in New York—its headquarters at 540 West 25th Street, which welcomed almost 120,000 visitors and programmed 20 shows in its first six months, and an adjacent 8,000 sq. ft. exhibition space at 510 West 25th Street. Pace was one of the first international galleries to establish outposts in Asia, where it operates permanent gallery spaces in Hong Kong and Seoul, as well as an office and viewing room in Beijing. In 2020, Pace opened temporary exhibition spaces in East Hampton and Palm Beach, with continued programming on a seasonal basis.
 | Peter Alexander | |
Opening Reception:
Thursday, Feb 10, 6 – 8 PM
