Among Friends: Three Views of a Collection

JUNE 23-AUGUST 12, 2022

Curated by Cynthia Daignault, Awol Erizku, and Ewan Gibbs

Drawn from the collection of Amanda and Glenn Fuhrman, founders of The FLAG Art Foundation, and curated by Cynthia Daignault, Awol Erizku, and Ewan Gibbs, the exhibition includes singular presentations of artworks that reflect each artist’s primary discipline and personal sensibilities: Daignault’s selection stems from painting; Erizku focuses on photography and sculpture; and Gibbs select drawings. Among Friends: Three Views of a Collection is on view June 23-August 12, 2022, and spans the FLAG’s 9th and 10th floors.

“Some of the most dynamic exhibitions in recent memory have been curated by artists, invited by museums and institutions to organize shows from their permanent collections. To see artists remix imagery or make unexpected pairings can transform a work you’ve seen hundreds of times into something completely new,” states Glenn Fuhrman. “Cindy, Awol, and Ewan have each been involved in multiple exhibitions at FLAG over the years and have all become close friends of mine and Amanda’s. I deeply respect their practices and discerning eyes and am excited to have them recontextualize works that I have loved and lived with for the past three decades.”

While the Fuhrmans’ collection of contemporary art is actively made available to curators and institutions worldwide through The Fuhrman Family Foundation, this is only the second time in FLAG’s history (A Secret Affair: Selections from the Fuhrman Family Collection, 2017) that a show has been drawn exclusively from it.

“This presentation is a window into Glenn’s history and taste,” says Cynthia Daignault, “but it also reflects my history and taste, my obsessions, and my interests at this moment in my studio. For that last six months, I’ve been making black-on-black paintings. I’ve been thinking about that history and about what those works mean, about Reinhardt, Goya, and Kerry James Marshall. These artists aren’t in this show, but their influence hovers over it; none of this work exists without them. These works share a mood—that 3 AM feeling—one part sinister, one part sexy, one part dreamlike, and one part sleeping. These works are about night, when the world is quiet. They’re about darkness, about infinity, about the galaxy, the void, sleep, sex, holes, dreaming, blackness, bodies, policing, outer space, spotlight, streetlight, inversion, and the womb.”

Daignault selected: Gina Beavers, Louise Bourgeois, Cecily Brown, Maurizio Cattelan, Vija Celmins, John Currin, Thomas Demand, Roe Ethridge, Dan Fischer, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Theaster Gates, Rodney Graham, David Hammons, Rashid Johnson, Barbara Kasten, Josephine Meckseper, Donald Moffett, Chris Ofili, Cinga Samson, Peter Stichbury, Piotr Uklański, and Lisa Yuskavage.

“It was exciting to engage with the collection and choose works I’m familiar with by artists who have had a great influence on me, such as Fred Wilson’s black glass chandelier (Speak of Me as I am: Chandelier Mori, 2003) and David Hammons’s rock head (Untitled, 2004),” states Awol Erizku. “I also encountered many surprises—though I’ve known Glenn for over eleven years and have become well versed with his collection—including Ellsworth Kelly’s totem (Untitled [Totem], 2003). The process of selecting artworks and curating them into a group show has a led me to create not only a portrait of an art patron, but to investigate the various dialogues happening in and amongst these particular pieces, which address ideas of beauty, labor, identity, materiality, figuration, etc.”

Erizku selected: David Hammons, Ellsworth Kelly, Wayne Lawrence, Robert Lazzarini, Simone Leigh, Tony Matelli, Paul Pfeiffer, Jeff Wall, and Fred Wilson.

“My selections are predominantly images of people,” says Ewan Gibbs. “The fact that so many of them are portraits and self-portraits of artists reflects Glenn’s decades-long enthusiasm for befriending and supporting artists, which includes Cindy, Awol, and me. I selected still lifes and observations of objects to go alongside depictions of people in and out of doors. There are also the occasional outliers, like Robert Therrien’s No Title (Blue Birds), 1997, which refuses to be pigeonholed. My hope is that the similarities of subject matter and composition may encourage viewers to hone in on different approaches to familiar themes or genres. Most of the works are labor (of love) intensive and I hope the combinations, constellations, and clusters of images reflect my own fascination with mark-making in its many guises and the respect and admiration I hold for my peers." 

Gibbs selects: Noriko Ambe, Vija Celmins, Julie Curtiss, Ben Durham, Dan Fischer, Richard Forster, Tom Friedman, Tim Gardner, Franz Gertsch, Gauri Gill, Mark Grotjahn, Karl Haendel, Jim Hodges, Butt Johnson, Ellsworth Kelly, Cary Kwok, Dr. Lakra, Graham Little, Roy Lichtenstein, Christian Marclay, Brice Marden, Tom Molloy, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Jonathan Owen, Raymond Pettibon, Elizabeth Peyton, Richard Phillips, Alessandro Raho, Charles Ray, Ed Ruscha, James Siena, Lorna Simpson, Ken Solomon, Robert Therrien, Wayne Thiebaud, Jim Torok, Cy Twombly, Justin Wadlington, Mark Wagner, Kehinde Wiley, and Steve Wolfe.

About:

Cynthia Daignault (b. 1978, Baltimore, MD) is an artist living and working in Baltimore, MD. Daignault received a BA from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 2001. Recent solo exhibitions include Xanadu, The Sunday Painter, London, United Kingdom (2022); As I Lay Dying, Kasmin, New York, NY (2021); Light Atlas, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY (2021); Elegy, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2019); among others. Daignault has presented exhibitions and projects at many major museums and institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, MASS MoCA, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Her work is in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art the Blanton Museum of Art, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2019 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a 2016 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts Award, a 2011 Rema Hort Foundation Award, and a 2010 MacDowell Colony Fellowship. Light Atlas, Daignault ‘s 400-page monograph, was published by Gregory R. Miller & Co. in 2019.

Awol Erizku (b. 1988, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. Erizku works in photography, film, sculpture, and installation to create a new vernacular that bridges the gap between African and African American visual culture. Recent solo exhibitions include Memories of a Lost Sphinx, Gagosian, New York, NY (2022); Scorched Earth, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2021); New Visions for Iris, Public Art Fund, New York, NY, and Chicago, IL (2021); Mystic Parallax, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2020); among others. Erizku has exhibited nationally and internationally at  the Museum of Modern Art, Crystal Bridges Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, among others. He also brings high concept to commercial photography highlighting cultural and creative leaders for publications such as The New Yorker, New York Magazine, GQ, and Vanity Fair. He is represented by Night Gallery in Los Angeles and Ben Brown Fine Arts in London and Hong Kong.

Ewan Gibbs (b. 1973, London, United Kingdom) is an artist living and working in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. Gibbs received a BFA from Goldsmiths College, University of London, United Kingdom, in 1996. Recent solo exhibitions include New York/Chicago, Richard Gray Gallery, New York, NY (2019); Crossing America, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO (2016); Arlington National Cemetery, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX (2012); among others. Gibbs’s work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Drawn Together Again, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2019); Roy Lichtenstein: Intimate Sculptures, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2014); personal, political, mysterious, Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, TX, (2013); among others. His drawings are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the Tate Gallery, London; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard, MA; The Denver Art Museum, CO; among others. Gibbs’s work has been the subject of reviews and articles in publications including Artforum, Art + Auction, Glass Tire, The New York Times, among others.

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