BOOK: Sam Gilliam-The Last Five Years

Sam Gilliam is one of the great innovators in postwar American painting. He emerged from the Washington, D.C. scene in the mid-1960s with works that elaborated upon and disrupted the ethos of Color School painting. A series of formal breakthroughs would soon result in his canonical Drape paintings, which expanded upon the tenets of Abstract Expressionism in entirely new ways. Suspending stretcherless lengths of painted canvas from the walls or ceilings of exhibition spaces, Gilliam transformed his medium and the contexts in which it was viewed. David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles and Pace Gallery in New York present “Sam Gilliam: The Last Five Years”, a two-part exhibition of paintings created by Gilliam between 2018 and 2022. David Kordansky Gallery’s presentation, on view in all three spaces at its Los Angeles location (13/1-3/3/2024) and features works from Gilliam’s “Drape” series, as well as a selection of watercolors. Pace’s presentation, which was on view in New York (15/9-28/10/2023), focused on the artist’s beveled-edge canvases. Both presentations also include Gilliam’s tondo paintings, a format that he explored in depth in the final chapter of his career. Across both venues, the exhibition is comprised chiefly of artworks that have never been exhibited publicly. With extensive photography and an essay by art historian Lowery Stokes Sims that traces the development of the artist’s practice, this catalogue, produced jointly by Pace Publishing and David Kordansky Gallery, offers an in-depth look at these dynamic, vibrant compositions and the singular man behind them.-Dimitris Lempesis