The Street at Gagosian

Review by Sutton Allen, guest contributor

The Street at Gagosian, 980 Madison Ave. On view until December 18.

There stands a eulogy uptown at 980 Madison Ave, between 76th and 77th Street. Gagosian is slated to permanently close the doors of its Madison Avenue location within the coming months, and The Street is an excellent send-off. Originally conceived for the Musee d’Orsay, painter-turned-curator Peter Doig brought together painters across time and geographies to explore the urban landscape.

Doig, the Edinburgh-born painter of international renown, has set auction records and been established in major collections for decades, takes his title, The Street, from the pièce de résistance in the show, Balthus’ 1933 painting. This early work of the French Master is a triumph and, though owned by the MoMA, has not been on display since 2000. Doig correctly repositions this painting, taking its implications as a unique curatorial endeavor.

Hanging to the left of Balthus is Frank Auerbach’s (1931–2024) Rimbaud of 1976, on loan from the Tate. Auerbach, the preeminent painter of the School of London, died within ten days of the Gagosian opening. The painting is now doubly a haunting specter, as it depicts an effigy to the 19th-century poet, a scene Auerbach scrutinously observed in the streets of London. It is a challenging picture, as all Auerbach’s are. Paint is gushed on with lines ferociously pasted here and there. Rimbaud himself is like a meme in a world of viscous paint.

Besides The Street to the right is an early, uncharacteristic Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1936. This picture does not foretell his late, heroic color field paintings. Rather, we see a young artist looking to the city streets, attempting to put into design his visual world. The urban landscape is treated in flat, tonal passages. There is what looks like an elevated line, a statue in the foreground, and, unmistakably, the moon overhead. Here, as the exhibition’s premise suggests, we see the urban experience as lived by three vital painters in Paris, London, and New York.

These three pictures are key to the show: urban painters bring fresh observations to their world and indulge a consequential painter’s aesthetic preferences. Be reintroduced to de Chirico, Hélion, and Francis Bacon. Or discover Prunella Clough (as I did), Satoshi Kojima, or Lotte Maiwald. Both Kojima (b. 1979) and Maiwald (b. 1988) are active in Düsseldorf where Doig has taught.

Of the many relationships to discover here, one of particular interest is Max Beckman, represented by two paintings, and Denzil Forrester (b. 1956). Beckmann’s Film Studio, 1933, on loan from St. Louis, depicts the dark, crowded interior of the burgeoning world of cinema. Its jagged divisions and cryptic spaces speak to Forrester’s Tribute to Winston Rose, 1982. Here, we see a dense, obscure interior with vistas of the city beyond. These are works by two artists we will not see together again, so enjoy the dialogue.

Doig brought together important works from public collections that would not be placed together without his novel eye. See the show: wonder over Auerbach, be puzzled by de Chirico, beleaguered by Bacon, and charmed by Doig himself; indeed he curated two of his own paintings into the exhibition. Alas, of the many foolhardy attempts to assimilate the art of the early and middle 20th century with the art of our time, The Street rises above the clatter.