Los Angeles, CA
The Proliferation of the Sun
a poetic journey through space
Featuring seven digital projections of hand-painted slides and a soundtrack of the artist’s voice directing them, The Proliferation of the Sun envelops visitors and the gallery in shifting prismatic tones that generate, in Otto Piene’s words, a “poetic journey through space.” Particularly fascinated by the medium of light, Piene spent his entire career experimenting with it. The Proliferation of the Sun was originally conceived as a multislide projection and performance with Piene’s scripted narration in 1966–67 for the opening of Piene and Aldo Tambellini’s Black Gate Theatre in New York. Against the backdrop of the era’s spread of nuclear weapons, the work countered the destructive powers of war with an abstract, peaceful visual world. The current restaging at the gallery accords with the final iteration of The Proliferation of the Sun, devised by Piene as the centerpiece of his 2014 retrospective at the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin.
Audience Role
Observer.
Ages: All ages
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Years on EI
About Sprüth Magers
Sprüth Magers has expanded from its roots in Cologne, Germany to become an international gallery dedicated to exhibiting the very best in groundbreaking modern and contemporary art. With galleries located in Berlin Mitte, London’s Mayfair, the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles and Manhattan, New York – as well as offices in Cologne, Hong Kong, and Seoul – Sprüth Magers retains close ties with the studios and communities of the international artists who form the core of its roster. The gallery emerged amid an extraordinary outburst in contemporary art that took place in Cologne in the early 1980s. Its first iteration as Monika Sprüth Gallery opened in 1983 with an exhibition of paintings by Andreas Schulze and was soon followed by exhibitions of Rosemarie Trockel and Peter Fischli David Weiss. Over the next few years, George Condo, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman all showed at the gallery and have continued to do so for the last thirty years. In 1991, a second gallery opened in Cologne under the name of Philomene Magers. Early exhibitions included Ad Reinhardt’s Black Paintings, Robert Morris’s felt pieces and John Baldessari’s photographs and text paintings from the 1960s. The two galleries merged into a single entity in 1998, and in 2000, a Munich space opened with Ed Ruscha’s exhibition Gunpowder and Stains. In 2003, Sprüth Magers Lee opened in London with an exhibition of works by Donald Judd. In 2007, Sprüth Magers relocated to Grafton Street, Mayfair, inaugurating the space with a show of new photographs by Andreas Gursky. In 2008, the gallery established its flagship space in a former dancehall in Berlin Mitte, not far from the city’s Museum Island, debuting with Thomas Scheibitz and George Condo. The next chapter in the gallery’s history was the launch of the Los Angeles space in 2016, presenting new works by John Baldessari. Located on Wilshire Boulevard, just across the road from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, it is housed in a two-story building designed in the late 1960s by renowned West Coast architects William L. Pereira & Associates. In 2022, Sprüth Magers opened its most recent gallery space in New York on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with an exhibition of John Baldessari’s rarely seen preparatory maquettes. Known for its rigorously curatorial approach to its program and for a deep and enduring devotion to the artists it represents, the gallery has fostered close and cooperative relationships with museums and curators worldwide for nearly four decades. Meanwhile, it continues its tradition of commissioning new scholarship and creating innovative artist books and catalogues. Sprüth Magers now works with over 70 artists and estates. While continuing to work with mid-career artists such as Sterling Ruby and Kara Walker, the gallery regularly broadens its program with up-and-coming younger voices, including Cao Fei, Cyprien Gaillard, Anne Imhof, Pamela Rosenkranz and Analia Saban. The program is rounded off with longstanding, influential artists such as the late Richard Artschwager and Hanne Darboven, Reinhard Mucha, Senga Nengudi, Bridget Riley, Frank Stella, and the Estates of John Baldessari, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Craig Kauffman, Otto Piene, and Kaari Upson.