Galerie Lelong & Co. is pleased to present an online viewing room of new and recent sculptures by six of the gallery’s artists: Petah Coyne, Leonardo Drew, Andy Goldsworthy, Jaume Plensa, Zilia Sánchez, and Ursula von Rydingsvard. Many of the works included are presented to viewers for the first time. This room also explores a selected public work by each artist that draws connection to the more intimately scaled pieces available in the viewing room.
Petah Coyne
Untitled #1529 (Ana), 2021
Specially-formulated wax, silk flowers, pigment, wire, jaw-to-jaw swivel, quick-link shackles, 5/16" Grade 30 Proof coil chain, silk Duchesse satin, paper towels, Velcro, thread, plastic
24 x 14.5 x 14 inches (61 x 36.8 x 35.6 cm)
(GL14995)
Leonardo Drew
Number 287, 2021
Wood and paint
78 x 2.75 x 6 inches (198.1 x 7 x 15.2 cm)
(GL14941)
Andy Goldsworthy
Clay Desk, 2020
Clay and desk
Overall: 72 1/8 x 42 7/8 x 31 1/2 inches
(183 x 109 x 80 cm)
(GL15015)
Jaume Plensa
Study for Carla, 2020
Bronze
22 1/8 x 5 7/8 x 9 1/8 in (56 x 15 x 23 cm)
11 kg
Edition 5 of 8
(GP2709)
Detail: Petah Coyne, Untitled #1529 (Ana), 2021
PETAH COYNE
This new sculpture from Petah Coyne continues her ongoing series of works inspired by and named after great women in history. Here, Coyne reflects on another artist of the gallery, the pioneering Ana Mendieta. Coyne’s signature use of hand-dipped silk flowers builds a delicate work that also hangs with weight and density.
Since the 1980s, Coyne has received critical acclaim for using intricate, unorthodox material—trees, human hair, scrap metal, wax, silk flowers, religious statuary, and taxidermy—to create sculptures that are both precise in their attention to detail and baroque in their emotional range. Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1953, the artist currently lives in New York City. Read more.
Petah Coyne, Untitled #1378 (Zelda Fitzgerald), 1997-2013. Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Joen Greenwood Endowment Fund purchase, 2018.39a-b. Photograph courtesy Chazen Museum of Art.
This piece, a recent acquisition at the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin, is currently on view at the museum. Championing and giving voice to another woman in history, the sculpture takes a different form but explores Coyne’s continued use of unorthodox materials to build her alluring works. The Chazen will present a solo exhibition of Coyne’s in 2022.
Leonardo Drew, Detail: Number 287, 2021.
LEONARDO DREW
This new totemic work from Leonardo Drew continues the artist’s recent insertion of color into his practice. Featuring his neatly stacked pieces of cut lumber finished with a matte black wash, the verticality of the work keeps the viewer’s eye examining the intricacies throughout the piece.
Leonardo Drew is known for creating contemplative abstract sculptural works that play upon a tension between order and chaos. Drew was born in 1961 in Tallahassee, Florida, and he grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Read more.
Leonardo Drew, Number 69S, 2019. Mixed media sculptures. Installation view at San Francisco International Airport, Gate B9. Photograph courtesy San Francisco Arts Commission.
Andy Goldsworthy, Clay Desk, 2020. Clay and desk, 72 1/8 x 42 7/8 x 31 1/2 inches (183 x 109 x 80 cm).
ANDY GOLDSWORTHY
Goldsworthy has long worked with clay in both his ephemeral and permanent work practice. In this work, made during lockdown, the clay work takes the form of a desk. He says: “Everyday commonplace spaces such as the office have stood empty and desks unused for large parts of this year. They have by consequence become places for me to work with as an artist—conscious of the many desks and offices that have laid empty during this year.”
In a diverse career spanning five decades, Andy Goldsworthy has become one of the most prominent and iconic contemporary sculptors. He documents his explorations of the effects of time, and the relationship between humans and their natural surroundings through photographs, sculptures, installations, and films. The artist was born in Cheshire, England, in 1956, and is now based in Scotland. Read more.
Andy Goldsworthy, Clay Houses (Boulder-Room-Holes), 2007. Mica-schist, clay, hair, slate, exterior of each house, height 4m, width 4.9m, length 5.8m. Photo: Jerry Thompson.
Clay Houses at Glenstone is a group of three stone houses of equal size and set into the bank. The installations within—titled Clay House (Boulder), Clay House (Holes), and Clay House (Room)—are constructed using clay excavated from the ground. The patina that resulted has become darker and richer over years making one feel in an almost ancient time upon entry.
Jaume Plensa, Detail: Study for Carla, 2020.
JAUME PLENSA
Plensa’s mastery of scale and material continues to be a foundation of his renowned practice. This intimate bronze work reveals a girl’s eyes closed in a dream-state position emphasizing the interior path of dreams and ideas. The artist is known for creating sculptures and installations that unify individuals through connections of spirituality, the body, and collective memory.
Using a wide range of materials including steel, cast iron, resin, paraffin wax, glass, light, water, and sound, Plensa lends physical weight and volume to components of the human condition and the ephemeral. The artist was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1955, where he currently lives and works. Read more.
Installation view at Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, Valencia, Spain 2019. Photo: Mikel Ponce.
In 2019, Plensa presented seven monumental figures at the Calatrava City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain. Carla was one of the cast iron sculptures presented. The linear installation in water provided moments of tranquility and reflection for viewers.
Zilia Sánchez, Concepto I, 2000 / 2019.
ZILIA SÁNCHEZ
Fully realized for the first time, having previously existing only as maquettes, Sánchez’s recent sculptures retain qualities present in the artist’s paintings. These two freestanding parts form a pair in solid bronze and evoke the sensuality and shape of her canvases.
Over her 65-year career, Sánchez’s work has been characterized by her distinctive approach to formal abstraction through the use of undulating silhouettes, muted color palettes, and a unique, sensual vocabulary. Sánchez was born in 1926 in Havana, Cuba. The artist lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she permanently settled in the early 1970s. Read more.
Zilia Sánchez, Mural in Cement, 1971. Laguna Gardens, a housing complex near San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photo: Raquel Perez Puig.
This is Sánchez’s first public work, a mural in cement on the building façade of Laguna Gardens in her adopted hometown, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Similar to her paintings, clear geometric forms, which are often repeated, swell out of the work and her muted color palette is present.
Ursula von Rydingsvard, Fan with Shims II, 2019.
URSULA VON RYDINGSVARD
In a rare intimately scaled work from recent years, von Rydingsvard employs her traditional medium of cedar to create an intricately detailed piece using a common form. The graphite that she applies disguises the wood. As she says about the material, “It's neutral, like a piece of paper."
Over a remarkable four-decade-long career, Ursula von Rydingsvard has become one of the most influential sculptors working today, best known for creating large-scale, often monumental sculpture from cedar beams. Von Rydingsvard was born 1942 in Deensen, Germany. She has lived and worked in New York City for over 40 years. Read more.
Installation view: Ursula von Rydingsvard, Unraveling, 2007, at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas.
While many of von Rydingsvard’s works are freestanding, Unraveling, 2007, in the collection of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, is an example of another wall mounted work in cedar. Very much a drawing in wood, the piece flows with energy and makes it way downward, similar to the movement of Fan with Shims.
