Nathalie Du Pasquier: ‘Studio’ at Frieze Masters 2024
The artist’s latest works demonstrate her fascination with the arrangement of things, drawing on works by Fra Angelico and Giorgio Morandi
The artist’s latest works demonstrate her fascination with the arrangement of things, drawing on works by Fra Angelico and Giorgio Morandi
‘Enlargements of an object or a fragment give it a personality it never had before and, in this way, it can become an article of entirely new lyric and plastic power’ – Fernand Léger1
An original member of the 1980s Italian design and architecture collective Memphis Group, Nathalie Du Pasquier abandoned her activity as a designer after the group disbanded in 1987 to devote herself primarily to painting. Still life then became, and continues to be, a cornerstone of her practice.
Across the – often artificial – distinction between art and design runs Du Pasquier’s fascination with the arrangement of things. From the stage-like architectural frames in a Fra Angelico painting to Giorgio Morandi’s careful groupings of domestic vessels to late-19th-century Korean still life paintings of books and things, chaekgeori, it is the organization of objects, figures and, occasionally, words within a given space, that draws the attention of Du Pasquier. At times, this extends to her creation of total environments for the display of her works, which sometimes include constructions.
In her most recent paintings, colour and placement are given precedence over volume and texture. Yet, even when distilled to the most direct expression – lines on a monochrome surface – Du Pasquier’s work maintains a spatial intimation and material connection to the world at hand: a staircase, a window, a tap.
Nathalie Du Pasquier is showing with Pace Gallery at Frieze Masters 2024.
About Studio at Frieze Masters 2024
Following its debut in 2023, Studio, curated by Sheena Wagstaff, highlights Frieze Masters’ commitment to living practice in dialogue with historical art. By focusing on artists’ place of making, it reflects the idea of the past informing the present moment of creation in an object for the future.
Studio features ten solo presentations by Beatrice Caracciolo (Paula Cooper Gallery), Isabella Ducrot (Sadie Coles HQ, Galerie Gisela Capitain and Standard (Oslo)), Nathalie Du Pasquier (Pace Gallery), Shirazeh Houshiary (Lisson Gallery), Kim Yun Shin (Lehmann Maupin), Mernet Larsen (James Cohan), Thaddeus Mosley (Karma), Doris Salcedo (White Cube), Nilima Sheikh (Chemould Prescott Road) and Adriana Varejão(Victoria Miro).
Further Information
Frieze London and Frieze Masters, 9 – 13 October 2024, The Regent’s Park.
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Main Image: Nathalie Du Pasquier, Untitled, 2024. Oil on canvas, 1 × 1 m. Courtesy: the artist and Pace Gallery
1 Quotation from Fernand Léger selected by Luca Lo Pinto at the request of Nathalie Du Pasquier, in The strange order of things, designed by the artist on the occasion of a series of exhibitions at Pace Gallery, Humboldt Books, 2018.
