Artists

Reena Spaulings

Press release

Reena Spaulings invests Galerie Chantal Crousel's second space, rue de Saintonge, with a new exhibition focused on painting.

The artists of the Reena Spaulings collective question the traditionally accepted notion of authorship, as well as the division of labor in art. They deliberately make a mockery of the individuality, quality and continuity of any signature painting style, in order to challenge ancestral systems of art appreciation.

Playing with the architecture of the space, various canvases are displayed on stretchers in the room, while others are marouflaged on the walls, which are themselves colored. The collective draws inspiration from the works of 16th-century Flemish masters and Matisse's paper cut-outs, creating ideograms which cover the gallery space.

 

Reena Spaulings first emerged in the eponymous novel published in 2004 as a fictional character of a young woman making her way in the New York art scene of the 2000s. Meanwhile, Reena Spaulings Fine Art opened on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and its founding members started commercial and artistic collaborations with the gallery’s artists such as Ei Arakawa, Claire Fontaine, Klara Liden, Jutta Koether and Seth Price. Spaulings’ artistic work embraces ambiguities that question as much the traditionally accepted notion of authorship, as the customary division of labour within the art world.