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The new UBS Art Gallery at 1285 Avenue of the Americas offers a
forum to make works from the Collection available to the public, and
will feature rotating special exhibitions alongside permanent
installations by iconic artists Sarah Morris, Frank Stella, Fred
Eversley, Howard Hodgkin and more.
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Opening May 20, the first exhibition will feature highlights from
UBS Art Collection’s approximately 30,000 works, dating from the 1960s
to the present day.
UBS, the world's largest wealth manager, announced today that an
exhibition of artwork spanning 60 years from the UBS Art Collection will
commemorate the renovated public lobby space at UBS’s headquarters in
Midtown New York. The space, now called the UBS Art Gallery at 1285
Avenue of the Americas, will be inaugurated by A History and a
Moment: Works from the UBS Art Collection, an exhibition that offers
insights into the history and evolution of the Collection since the
1960s, featuring works by established artists such as Ellsworth Kelly
and Cindy Sherman alongside recent acquisitions by Dinh Q. Lê and
Xaviera Simmons.
Tom Naratil, Co-President Global Wealth Management and President
Americas at UBS said: "The UBS Art Gallery offers us a new
forum to publicly present works from the UBS Art Collection, one of the
finest and most comprehensive corporate collections in the world. As a
firm, we are passionate about collecting contemporary art, which we
believe has the power to provide fresh insights, to provoke spirited
debate, and to inspire change. We are excited to share our collection
with New Yorkers and visitors from around the world."
Divided into two primary sections, the North and South Galleries, the
UBS Art Gallery will feature up to four exhibitions per year in the
South Gallery, allowing the Collection to showcase diverse artworks,
with plans for a solo exhibition of work by Ed Ruscha in fall 2019.
Beginning in 2020, the UBS Art Collection also plans to partner with
external arts organizations, institutions and non-profits for additional
programming.
A History and a Moment, located in the South Gallery, will
showcase works from the Collection in a variety of media and styles,
including photography, painting, mixed media, collage and works on
paper. Touching on the major artistic movements and developments since
the Collection began in the 1960s, the exhibition will include Abstract
Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler, Cindy Sherman, Louise Lawler and
Robert Longo of the Pictures Generation, a neo-expressionist painting by
Carroll Dunham, and a Cecily Brown watercolor, among others.
Mary Rozell, Global Head UBS Art Collection, said: "The Art
Collection has expanded over the decades alongside the growth of the
firm, and now encompasses a wealth of works and artists representing
cultures from around the world, including iconic art of the last half
century and new acquisitions that express the impulses and
preoccupations of the current moment. The guiding mission for the
Collection is to capture the most significant artists and ideas to of
our time, and we are proud to now have a dedicated gallery space to
share that work with the public.”
Throughout the lobby, permanent installations of large-scale works from
the Collection will be on display. Among the works on view is a
mixed-technique print by Howard Hodgkin; a parabolic lens by Light and
Space artist Fred Eversley; a totem-like sculpture made from found items
and craft materials by Mindy Shapero; an iconic text-based painting by
Christopher Wool in his signature stencil style; a cut-out photograph
inspired by Roy Lichtenstein's interiors by Jose Dávila, a life-size
sculpture of a woman in black patinated bronze by Julian Opie; a
minimalist sculpture by Eva Rothschild composed of triangles delicately
tumbling to the floor from its plinth; and a polychromatic metal relief
by Frank Stella from his Moby Dick series which originally hung
in the PaineWebber offices on the 38th floor.
Works on display highlight the Collection's unique heritage, which
includes important artist commissions and UBS’s longstanding history of
collaborating with living artists throughout their careers. Among them
are Sarah Morris's redesign of a monumental wall painting, which is over
42 feet long and directly faces Avenue of the Americas, originally
created as an on-site installation at a former UBS building in Zurich in
2001; and a chromo-kinetic sculpture by Venezuelan artist Carlos
Cruz-Diez that was once part of an architectural intervention in the
Union Bank of Switzerland building in Zurich in 1975.
Many of the works on view featured in the recent publication UBS Art
Collection: To Art its Freedom, which presents a visual essay that
captures the essence of the Collection. The publication is the first
major book on the Collection in over a decade and takes its name from
the quotation above the entrance of the Secession Building in Vienna, “To
Every Age its Art, to Art its Freedom”, which captures the spirit of
the UBS Art Collection.
Notes to Editors:
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UBS Art Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday: 7:00am – 6:00pm
About UBS and Contemporary Art
UBS has a long history of supporting contemporary art and artists. The
firm has one of the world’s largest and most important corporate art
collections and seeks to advance the international conversation about
the art market through its global lead partnership with Art Basel and as
co-publisher of the ‘Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report'. UBS
also has partnerships with fine art institutions including the Fondation
Beyeler in Switzerland, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Russia,
the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
in Denmark, the Deichtorhallen in Germany, the Museo del Palacio de
Bellas Artes in Mexico and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in
Australia. UBS provides its clients with insight into the art market,
collecting and legacy planning through its Art Collectors Circle and the
UBS Art Competence Center. The UBS Arts Forum convenes and connects
exceptional people in the art world, providing thought leadership at the
cutting edge of contemporary art. For more information about UBS’s
commitment to contemporary art, visit ubs.com/art.
About the UBS Art Collection
UBS has been an active contemporary art collector since the 1960s, a
practice driven by the company’s long-held belief that the art of today
provides inspiration and challenge while encouraging the innovative
thinking that has shaped UBS’s corporate culture over the last
half-century. Today the UBS Art Collection is considered one of the
largest and most important corporate collections of contemporary art in
the world. It is comprised of various individual art collections with
unique attributes that have been integrated over time through a series
of mergers and acquisitions – notably Union Bank of Switzerland, Swiss
Bank Corporation and PaineWebber Inc. The vast majority of these works
are displayed in more than 700 UBS offices around the world, serving as
an inspiration for employees and a platform for dialogue with clients
and the public. UBS takes a dynamic approach to the Collection,
continuing to evolve and grow through acquisitions of works from around
the world in accordance with the geographical reach of its business. UBS
also supports artists and galleries and actively lends works to major
art museums and cultural institutions for public exhibitions.
© UBS 2019. All rights reserved. The key symbol and UBS are among the
registered and unregistered trademarks of UBS.
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