Skip to content

MUSEUM ACQUISITIONS 2024

Petzel is pleased to share a selection of institutional acquisitions from the past year, featuring works by artists working across an array of media and methodologies. This selection highlights a varied group of works that demonstrate the continued insight, innovation, and dynamism of represented artists, underscoring their ongoing contributions and relevance, and lasting impact across their oeuvres.

Yael Bartana, Two Minutes to Midnight, 2021, HD video, 47:15 minutes, Edition of 5 + 2 AP

Yael Bartana, Two Minutes to Midnight, 2021, HD video, 47:15 minutes, Edition of 5 + 2 AP

YAEL BARTANA
Two Minutes to Midnight, 2021

Hammer Museum
Los Angeles, CA
&
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco, CA

 

“What if women ruled the world?” Yael Bartana asks in ‘Two Minutes to Midnight,’ in which a government of a fictitious country, led entirely by women, must address an imminent nuclear threat from a foreign nation.

Set in a ‘Peace Room,’ a stark foil to the toxically masculine ‘War Room’ from Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War satire, Dr. Strangelove, a roundtable of both real experts and fictional characters seek solutions to their quandary. Bartana’s visionary work is the synthesis of an interdisciplinary four-year process that analyses the geopolitical power game – and presents us with an alternative to the macho power discourse. 

Ross Bleckner, Day and Night, Hour by Hour, 2023, Oil on linen, 60 x 84 inches, 152.4 x 213.4 cm

Ross Bleckner, Day and Night, Hour by Hour, 2023, Oil on linen, 60 x 84 inches, 152.4 x 213.4 cm

ROSS BLECKNER
Day and Night, Hour by Hour, 2023

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Kansas City, MO

 

Day and Night, Hour by Hour is a meditation on time, the ephemerality of life, and both the beauty and despair that come from knowing that the people and things you love will eventually be lost and forgotten. It is an inquiry into the place where experimentation, peace of mind, and discomfort intersect.”

—Ross Bleckner

Cosima von Bonin, TOTAL PRODUCE (MORALITY), 2010, Various fabrics, polyfill, foam, rubber, wood, neon tubes, 33.5 x 98 x 98 inches, 85 x 230 x 250 cm

Cosima von Bonin, TOTAL PRODUCE (MORALITY), 2010, Various fabrics, polyfill, foam, rubber, wood, neon tubes, 33.5 x 98 x 98 inches, 85 x 230 x 250 cm

COSIMA VON BONIN
TOTAL PRODUCE (MORALITY), 2010

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY

 

“Octopuses, famously brainy, are a frequent motif of Ms. von Bonin’s, and the stuffed one here is composed of a dozen fabrics, from floral patterns to neon-printed flags acquired in Japan...Her art is soft and sociable but dangerous underneath, as strange and as cute as a fish out of water.”

—Jason Farago, The New York Times

Derek Fordjour, Music Lesson, 2023, Acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, oil pastel, and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas, 65 x 85 inches, 165.1 x 215.9 cm

Derek Fordjour, Music Lesson, 2023, Acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, oil pastel, and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas, 65 x 85 inches, 165.1 x 215.9 cm

DEREK FORDJOUR
Music Lesson, 2023

Orange County Museum of Art
Costa Mesa, CA

 

In Music Lesson (2023), Derek Fordjour draws inspiration from Henri Matisse’s The Piano Lesson (1916). Fordjour reimagines Matisse’s balcony view as a voyeuristic perspective into a private room, where the figure of Matisse’s mother/piano teacher is transformed into a gospel choir singer. He places the boy (often seen as Pierre Matisse) at the center of the composition. The painting depicts a young boy being taught a singing lesson by a church gospel choir member. An open Bible on one side of the canvas and a framed picture of a woman in a nightgown on the other signify the boy’s awakening sexual awareness.

Tomoo Gokita, James Brown, 2023, Acrylic, colored pencil, pencil, and paper on canvas, 89.6 x 71.7 inches, 227.5 x 182 cm

Tomoo Gokita, James Brown, 2023, Acrylic, colored pencil, pencil, and paper on canvas, 89.6 x 71.7 inches, 227.5 x 182 cm

TOMOO GOKITA
James Brown, 2023

Portland Museum of Art
Portland, ME

 

Drawing on Pop Art, kitsch aesthetics, and music, Gokita’s crafted canvases are covered with multiple layers of paper for the first time, including paper sleeves of various vinyl records into the layers of his paintings. In doing so, the artist connects his latest series of paintings to a natural fluidity that underscores his versatile drawing practice. The hand-made ethos of his layered canvases also reflects Gokita’s longstanding affinity for vintage magazines and pulpy, printed ephemera, with his own Neo-expressionist, abstracted twist.

Charline von Heyl, Aléatoire, 2023, Oil, acrylic, charcoal, and sand on linen, 86 x 82 inches, 218.4 x 208.3 cm

Charline von Heyl, Aléatoire, 2023, Oil, acrylic, charcoal, and sand on linen, 86 x 82 inches, 218.4 x 208.3 cm

CHARLINE VON HEYL
Aléatoire, 2023

The Broad Art Museum
Los Angeles, CA

 

Aligned with von Heyl’s approach to “keep the paintings ahead of language…a place where thoughts and feelings meet, where looking feels like thinking,” Aléatoire and recent paintings continue to expand the artist’s practice of geometric abstraction, illustrating thought and association through movement, color, and shape.

Charline von Heyl, A Child Telling a Joke, 2022, Acrylic and crayon on linen, 82 x 74 inches, 208.3 x 188 cm

Charline von Heyl, A Child Telling a Joke, 2022, Acrylic and crayon on linen, 82 x 74 inches, 208.3 x 188 cm

CHARLINE VON HEYL
A Child Telling a Joke, 2022

Portland Museum of Art
Portland, ME

 

“In her painting A Child Telling A Joke, the peculiar shapes seem to be visual puns for chattering away, with zigzags indicating laughter. She is not afraid to have fun, to depict animals, or to hint at the personal and the biblical. She includes faces and skulls – everything that touches her, from poetry to news to dreams to art history – which she mulls over in full view.”

—Barbara A. MacAdam, Two Coats of Paint

Martin Kippenberger, Betty Ford Clinic, 1985, Oil and lacquer on canvas, 70.75 x 118 inches, 180 x 300 cm

Martin Kippenberger, Betty Ford Clinic, 1985, Oil and lacquer on canvas, 70.75 x 118 inches, 180 x 300 cm

MARTIN KIPPENBERGER
Betty Ford Clinic, 1985

The Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, IL

 

In 1985, Martin Kippenberger made a series of paintings that examined the politics of architecture, primarily focusing on clinics, prisons, and schools. In the present work, Kippenberger has depicted the Betty Ford Clinic in California. The rehab center was established in 1982 by former first lady and outspoken recovery advocate, Betty Ford. Kippenberger’s painting address the absurdity of structural aesthetics in modernist buildings when applied to institutional containment.

Museum Acquisitions 2024 -  - Collect - Petzel Gallery

SEAN LANDERS
Arctic Fox, 2014

Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Paris, FR

 

For over ten years, Sean Landers has been developing his series of tartan-furred animals. This incongruous, trompe-l’œil use of tartan is a reference to Magritte—to his so-called “La période vache” of 1948 when, in a deliberately coarse style, he undermined the notion of “good painting.” Clothing his wild animals in Scottish tartan and plaid patterns, Landers extends a visual, metonymic metaphor of “to coat,” coating the figures in paint, and inscribing within them movement, shape, and new representational meanings.

Malcolm Morley, Underneath the Lemon Tree, 1981, Oil on canvas, 57 x 75 inches, 144.8 x 190.5 cm

Malcolm Morley, Underneath the Lemon Tree, 1981, Oil on canvas, 57 x 75 inches, 144.8 x 190.5 cm

MALCOLM MORLEY
Underneath the Lemon Tree, 1981

Portland Museum of Art
Portland, ME

 

“Thus it is that a painting like Underneath the Lemon Tree of 1981 is a mixture of autobiography, exotic reference and sheer delight in the act of painting. We may remember that when David Hockney was very young, he, too, used to paint pictures that were an amalgam of historical styles, and that the Douanier Rousseau was never more compelling than when he worked with the image of a tropical jungle that he had never actually visited. (Morley found his archetypal jungle in Florida—and very convincing it is, too, just as he remembered the soldier in Underneath the Lemon Tree from childhood memories of the sentries in their boxes outside Buckingham Palace.)”

—John Russell, The New York Times (1984)

Seth Price, Thought Comes From the Body II, 2022–23, Acrylic, polymers, and UV-print on aluminum composite, 119.75 x 119.75 inches, 304.2 x 304.2 cm

Seth Price, Thought Comes From the Body II, 2022–23, Acrylic, polymers, and UV-print on aluminum composite, 119.75 x 119.75 inches, 304.2 x 304.2 cm

SETH PRICE
Thought Comes From the Body II, 2022–23

Museum of Modern Art
New York, NY

 

In Thought Comes From the Body II, Price merges gestural painting with various digital methods – evoking what he calls “human time” and “machine time.” Machine time refers to the longer and more intricate process of incorporating technical and digital art-making methods. Human time, on the other hand, is more instant: the nature of the artist’s brushstrokes, fingers, or footsteps on the black aluminum composite substrate; the gestural hand-painted elements which draw out details or emphasize shapes, or even connect areas of the computer-generated design. These two temporal dimensions collide in this painting, creating an interplay between digitally driven methods and human touch.

Seth Price, Weeptober, 2022–23, Acrylic, generatively produced image reverse-transferred into acrylic polymer, and UV-print on aluminum composite, 96 x 76.1 inches, 243.8 x 193.4 cm

Seth Price, Weeptober, 2022–23, Acrylic, generatively produced image reverse-transferred into acrylic polymer, and UV-print on aluminum composite, 96 x 76.1 inches, 243.8 x 193.4 cm

SETH PRICE
Weeptober, 2022–23

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Kansas City, MO

 

Price writes: “I started painting because I want to feel the intuition and immediacy of my body and also the distance and unpredictability of the machine. Contemporary painting offers a very refined way to bring human time and machine time into one artwork…I like working in this lineage, where the tools of the moment get at the feeling of the moment, and the tools of all time get at something deeper.”

Seth Price, Ardomancy, 2022–23, Acrylic and generatively produced image reverse-transferred into acrylic polymer on wood and aluminum composite, 47.5 x 71.5 inches, 120.7 x 181.6 cm

Seth Price, Ardomancy, 2022–23, Acrylic and generatively produced image reverse-transferred into acrylic polymer on wood and aluminum composite, 47.5 x 71.5 inches, 120.7 x 181.6 cm

SETH PRICE
Ardomancy, 2022–23

CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

 

Price implements a chain of technical processes to create Ardomancy, working first with brushes, pens, and his fingers to apply paint, and suggesting words to an AI program to generate source imagery. Price applies this AI-suggested image to the painting using a reverse-transfer technique often used for shirts and stickers, before going back in with a brush. Then, “when the painting starts to feel like a problem,” Price photographs it, and adds virtual motifs in a 3D cinema program. Finally, he prints these back on to the real painting at a large industrial facility, which introduces an element of risk, as he writes, “one error can destroy something I’ve worked on for months.” For Price, this method demonstrates a formal push-and-pull, noting, “making art with extremely different tools and media helps you take control and lose it, back and forth, over and over.”

Samson Young, Variations of 96 chords in space (feat. William Lane), 2022–2023, 4-channel videos with 6 channels of audio (composition for viola, crotales, woodblock, self-playing piano, e-bows on piano strings, electronic sounds, water fountain, painted screens, and custom software), Dimensions variable, duration average 2h10m, Edition of 3

Samson Young, Variations of 96 chords in space (feat. William Lane), 2022–2023, 4-channel videos with 6 channels of audio (composition for viola, crotales, woodblock, self-playing piano, e-bows on piano strings, electronic sounds, water fountain, painted screens, and custom software), Dimensions variable, duration average 2h10m, Edition of 3

SAMSON YOUNG
Variations of 96 chords in space (feat. William Lane), 2022–23

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
New York, NY

 

Filmed in a theater in Hong Kong, Variations of 96 Chords in space (Feat. William Lane), 2022–2023, features Young and performer William Lane with instruments like a woodblock, viola, crotales, and a self-playing piano. Additionally, a speaker plays both electronic and recorded sounds, with pitch materials linked to RGB colors. Young’s chart of 96 “color chords” associates 12 hues with specific key areas, where lighter tones have simpler intervals and darker tones are more complex. The work explores how sound perception is distorted in cinema, examining the spatial relationship between sound sources and viewers, creating a sonic and visual illusion.