Artists

Julie Mehretu, Philip Guston, Thomas Scheibitz, Uwe Lausen, Amy Sillman, Luis Gordillo, Néstor Sanmiguel Diest

Press release

carlier | gebauer, Berlin, is pleased to present the group exhibition, Luis in friendly company, with works by Luis Gordillo, Philip Guston, Uwe Lausen, Julie Mehretu, Néstor Sanmiguel Diest, Thomas Scheibitz, and Amy Sillman. Opening on Friday 1 May, 6 – 9 pm, on the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin. Original exhibited at carlier | gebauer, Madrid on the occasion of Apertura 2025, the exhibition is a joyful journey through the distinct stages of life and forms of expression, filled with entertaining encounters with fictional travel companions and creative accomplices, the group exhibition is devoted entirely to drawing: its rhythms, resistances, and radical possibilities. Gordillo's automatic drawings, humorous calligraphic diagrams, produced between the 1960s and 1990s, are displayed in playful dialogues alongside carefully selected works by each invited artist. Rather than illustrating influence in a linear way, these pairings reveal reciprocal affinities, echoing formal choices, and conceptual friction. The result is a constellation of conversations: a polyphonic arrangement that allows viewers to experience drawing as a musical structure — where repetition, variation, interruption, and syncopation shape the visual field. Gordillo emerges here not only as a precursor to many contemporary approaches to drawing, but as an artist deeply embedded in a dense network of aesthetic exchange. Luis in friendly company is an invitation to look closely at how drawing functions not just as a preparatory act or a automatic, private gesture, but as a fully realized, autonomous language