Hauser & Wirth Paris is now officially open. The first exhibition opening in Paris brings new works by the well-known Los Angeles artist Henry Taylor.
At the same time, Henry Taylor's large-scale retrospective exhibition "Side B" is also being held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the exhibition will last until January of the following year.

In preparation for the exhibition, Taylor will expand his studio practice to Paris for a residency in June and July 2023. During this time, Taylor drew inspiration from the city's unparalleled collection of historic art, such as at the Musée d'Orsay, where he was surrounded by French Impressionist, Expressionist, and Fauvist works that had inspired him over the years.

Taylor's deep knowledge of his art historical predecessors continues to be reflected in his work, and he has also copied works by Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Fili Phyllida Barlow, Philip Guston, Gerhard Richter, David Hammons and Glenn Ligon ) and others.

Sculpture, as part of Taylor’s artistic practice, plays an important role in this exhibition. Taylor's process of creating sculptures involves energetically stacking and fixing objects collected from all over the place. Whether they are bottle caps or toilet paper rolls, they comprehensively record his daily life and the materials that define it.

The artist refers to this highly intuitive creative process as "hunting and gathering," through which he is able to clearly focus on multiple historical and contemporary references simultaneously.Take, for example, the assemblage of milk bottles, bicycle tires, and baseball bats that appeared in the Paris exhibition. The work recodes the form of the materials used and their symbolic meanings, thereby commenting on and echoing long-standing art historical tropes. Duchampian readymade sculpture method.
When these sculptures are displayed alongside Taylor's portraits of historical figures, they reveal how the artist searched for subjects and materials, and demonstrate his encyclopedic knowledge of history.In addition, there is a giant sculpture called "One tree per family" (One tree per family, 2023) in the exhibition. This is a 15-foot-tall tree with a crown shaped like a giant African-American curly hair.

Taylor's work explores relationships and their impact on our lives.Although the human figure figures prominently in his work, he refuses to be labeled a "portrait painter." The paintings in this exhibition depict people from all walks of life and historical backgrounds, many of whom are family members of the artist.For example, the 2023 work "I got brothers ALL OVA the world but they forget we're related" (I got brothers ALL OVA the world but they forget we're related) depicts Taylor's brothers, with "VICTORY" appearing in the background behind the characters The word "Victory" resembles the trademark of a classic American chewing gum brand.Known for his playful visual and semantic puns, Taylor’s symbols flow freely between representations: chewing gum pays homage to the youth of the people in the painting, but also celebrates their graduation.

Also on display are "Father, Son, Fun" (2023), which depicts Martin Luther King Jr. playing baseball with his children, and another work " 'Another country,' Ben Vereen (2023) presents American actor, dancer and singer Ben Vereen; there is also a work of Taylor in Paris It was made to pay tribute to Josephine Baker, an American-born French dancer, singer, actress, civil rights activist and the first black superstar.

From memory and archival materials to live models, Taylor follows her own empathy in choosing her subjects to create strong connections. He paints full-bodied images with speed and abandon, contrasting areas of rich detail with flat, saturated acrylic colors to vividly capture the nuances and mood of his depicted subjects. The power of his paintings is reflected in the dynamic series of brushstrokes that attempt to capture fleeting emotions.From members of the black community to symbols of historical struggle, Taylor's subjects encompass the broad dimensions of the human condition; each work is a complete visual biography, a permanent record of an individual or group's history.

About the artist

Henry Taylor lives and works in Los Angeles.In 2022, Henry Taylor's large-scale solo exhibition "Henry Taylor: B Side" will be held at the Museum of Modern Art in Los Angeles. This is the artist's largest exhibition to date. The exhibition is now on tour to the Whitney in New York. Museum of Art until January.
Taylor's work has recently been featured in several group exhibitions across the United States, including i'm yours: Encounters with Art in Our Times at the Institute of Contemporary Art Museum in Boston and New York "Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America" ​​at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Taylor's work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally and is collected by numerous important public institutions.Including the Merchant Museum in Paris - Pinault Collection, Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York, Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Institute of Contemporary Art Museum in Boston, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, New York Museum of Modern Art, Duke University Nasher Museum of Art, Pérez Art Museum Miami, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, Whitney New York Museum of American Art, etc.

In 2018, Taylor was awarded the 2018 Robert De Niro Prize for his outstanding achievements in the field of painting.Taylor's works have been included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the 2019 58th Venice Biennale.

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