ART-PRESENTATION:The Sonnabend Collection
Ileana Sonnabend helped shape the course of postwar art in Europe and North America. A gallerist and noted collector, Sonnabend discovered and championed many of the most significant artists of her time. While known for her support of the prime artistic protagonists of Pop Art, Minimalism, Arte Povera, Post-Minimalism and Conceptual Art, Sonnabend’s engagement continued up to her death in 2007.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Remai Modern Archive
The first-ever Canadian exhibition of The Sonnabend Collection that features iconic works by artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jeff Koons opens at Remai Modern. The exhibition features more than 100 works by 67 artists, giving viewers the opportunity to explore seven decades of artistic development through a wide variety of mediums, including painting, sculpture, performance and, photography. From Pop to Minimalism to Neo-Geo, the exhibition offers insight not only into how artists were inspired by one another, but how they often broke the conventions of the styles and movements that came before them. Developed through the vision of Ileana Sonnabend (1914-2007), her husband Michael Sonnabend (1900-2001), and their adopted son Antonio Homem, the Sonnabend Collection is among the most significant private holdings of Modern and Contemporary art in the world. Sonnabend was, for many years, married to Leo Castelli whom she met in Bucharest in 1932 and married soon after. The couple had a daughter, Nina Sundell. She and her husband left Europe during the 1940s and settled in New York City. Through Peggy Guggenheim, they met Marcel Duchamp and Jackson Pollock. In 1950, the couple curated a show of young American and European painters, which included both Jean Dubuffet and Mark Rothko. In 1957, the Castellis opened their first Manhattan gallery in their drawing room at East 77th Street, showing the work of artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. They discovered and worked with the likes of Jasper Jones, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Franz Kline, and Ad Reinhardt. They essentially mixed with all the central figures of the art world of the last century. When the couple divorced in 1959. Ileana went on to marry Michael Sonnabend, with whom she opened Galerie Ileana Sonnabend in Paris in 1962. She opened a gallery of her own in Paris spreading Pop Art throughout Europe. She took Warhol to Europe in a ground-breaking exhibition called “Pop Art Américaine” at her Paris gallery in January 1964. She bravely paired him with more established artists such as James Rosenquist and Lee Bontecou. She then moved her headquarters back to New York City, where she became queen of the SoHo art world. Ileana Sonnabend Gallery introduced new figures such as Jeff Koons, Vito Acconci and European artists Gilbert & George, Jannis Kounellis, Christo, Baselitz,. At the Sonnabend Gallery, Vito Acconci performed the notorious piece “Seedbed” where the artist masturbated in her gallery for two weeks in 1972. In 1991 she exhibited “Made in Heaven” by Jeff Koons, most likely one of his most celebrated exhibitions. It consisted of a series of paintings and sculptures that show the artist having sex with his wife Ilona Staller.
On Presentation are works by: Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, John Chamberlain, James Rosenquist, Mario Schifano, Christo, Arman, Michelangelo Pistoletto, George Segal, Claes Oldenburg, Tom Wesselmann, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Larry Bell, John McCracken, John Baldessari, Sol LeWitt, Mel Bochner, Barry Le Va, Peter Halley, Clay Ketter, Mario Merz, Gilberto Zorio, Giovanni Anselmo, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Guilio Paolini, Jannis Kounellis, Keith Sonnier, Bruce Nauman, A.R. Penck, Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Immendorff, Ryan Roa, Haim Steinbach, Ashley Bickerton, Jeff Koons, Gilbert & George, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Christian Boltanski, Vito Acconci, Piero Manzoni, Boyd Webb, William Wegman, Andrea Robbins and Max Becher, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Anne Poirier & Patrick Poirier, Luigi Ontani, Philip Haas, Richard Artschwager, Terry Winters, Carroll Dunham, Rona Pondick, Robert Feintuch, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Candida Höfer, Elger Esser, Lawrence Beck, Clifford Ross, Matthias Schaller
Info: Curator: Antonio Homem, Remai Modern, 102 Spadina Crescent E, Saskatoon, Duration: 5/10//19-22/3/20, Days & Hours: Tue 10:00-22:00, Wed-Sun 10:00-17:00, https://remaimodern.org
