Judy Pfaff

August 28 + 29, 2021

NADA x Foreland

Catskill, NY

Gaa Gallery is pleased to present the work of Judy Pfaff at NADA x Foreland, a two-day exhibition this coming weekend in Catskill, NY. In partnership with the New Art Dealers Alliance and Foreland, the gallery will exhibit two new floor-based sculptures by Judy Pfaff. Known for her maximal installations of dense materiality and soaring ethereal structure, Pfaff's work explores and illuminates the infinite considerations of physical space via visual and tactile presentation.

Pulsing with a prismatic range of colors- orange, green, yellow, and pink, Ten Hacks for a Small Space, 2021, and Untitled, 2021 abound with an expansive vocabulary of material and movement. Constructed atop welded supports, in Ten Hacks for a Small Space pigmented foam, found objects, plastic, and fiberglass undulates and drapes across the underlying steel structure. Woven house mats rest below and roll up into the sculpture, situating the work in relationship to the ground. Lighted objects, lanterns rest atop the metal supports and mine the architectural language of interior space. In Untitled, twisted metal and strips of plexi plastic glass are tangled and illuminated by neon lights. In both these works, the arrangements and entanglements between forms produces space aglow with natural and artificial light. The resultant phenomenon transforms the sculptural object into a spatial experience of material and light.

Often cited as a pioneer of installation-art and contributor to the Pattern and Decoration Movement (P&D), Judy Pfaff (b. 1946, London) has created work that spans disciplines from painting to printmaking and sculpture to installation. Born in London in 1946, Pfaff received a BFA from Washington University Saint Louis (1971) and an MFA from Yale University (1973), where she studied with Al Held. She exhibited work in the Whitney Biennials of 1975, 1981, and 1987 and represented the United States in the 1998 Sao Paulo Bienal. Her pieces reside in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and Detroit Institute of Arts, among others. She is currently represented by the Miles McEnery and Accola Griefen galleries in New York and has been previously represented by Holly Solomon, Carl Solway, and Susanne Hilberry. She is the recipient of many awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center (2014), the MacArthur Foundation Award (2004), and the Guggenhiem Fellowship (1983). Pfaff lives and works in Tivoli, New York.

In partnership with Upstate Art Weekend and co-organized with NADA Member Jesse Greenberg of JAG Projects, NADA x Foreland highlights artworks from the community of NADA galleries, non-profits, and artists with a focus on artists working in the region of Upstate New York, featuring 81 exhibiting galleries, non-profits, and artist-run spaces presenting over 100 artists.

NADA x Foreland is free and open to the public Saturday, August 28 and August 29, 11 am - 8 pm at 361 Main Street, Catskill, New York. For more information, please click here.