Exhibition Details

Twentieth Gallery is pleased to announce ERODE - MORPH - BLOOM, an exhibition of works by six contemporary artists; Vanessa Beecroft, Nan Goldin, Kim Gordon, Katerina Jebb, Mary McCartney, and Marilyn Minter. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Swedish rug company Henzel Studio and curated by Joakim Andreasson.
ERODE - MORPH - BLOOM will mark the first gallery-wide exhibition and official unveil of Twentieth’s new Hollywood Hills destination, which Twentieth’s Founders and Directors Stefan Lawrence and Daniele Albright envision as a space to foster deeper exchange between designers, artists, and the gallery’s audience.
The exhibition brings together six hand-knotted rugs designed by each artist as part of Henzel Studio’s artist program. Alongside the exclusive textiles, and positioned in close proximity, will be original artworks selected together with each artist to establish a cross-media relationship and narrative, determined by their output within the gallery’s domicile layout and the spatial engagement with surrounding furniture designs and architectural elements.
The artists’ rugs collectively evoke a cyclical course that is directly tied with their artisanal makings—here the erosion of raw materials, the morphing from one media to another, and its blossoming into the end result—play a role in terms of production, subject matter, and design attributes.
Known for her poignant portraits of gritty New York City subcultures, Nan Goldin chose a sweeter-than-usual subject for the rug: her image of a heart-shaped wreath of roses that dried in her Paris bedroom. “It was given to me by a friend I love dearly,” Goldin says. “The flowers aren’t dead to me, just transformed.” Now they live on in hand-knotted wool and silk.
Vanessa Beecroft’s rug was initiated during a period when Beecroft returned to the origins of her classical training and immersed herself completely into painting and sculpture that materialized her performances and turned them into objects. One of these paintings of a distorted female figure was selected to be appropriated into a hand-knotted rug.
Celebrated for her work as a founding member of the experimental post-punk band Sonic Youth, multi-disciplinary artist Kim Gordon’s rug is one from a series of three based on her “Flung” photo series of objects on the ground.
Marilyn Minter’s Twilight rug is the second design in a series for Henzel Studio and appropriates her painting Twilight, depicting a cracked shower-glass surface. The original work is part of Minter’s depiction of subjects through panes of wet or steamed glass, commenting on the voyeuristic relationship between artist and muse.
Mary McCartney’s rug appropriates a photograph of an English Rose into a hand-knotted rug, which has been adapted as a design informed both by the frame of the photographic lens and the natural shape and texture of the rose petals.
Titled Fallen White Pigment Katerina Jebb’s carpet is a re-contextualization of an artwork created during her artist residency at The Balthus Foundation in Switzerland. “Over a period of several years, I documented hundreds of objects and spaces in and around Balthus’ studio, which has remained intact since his death in 2001. Upon my exploration, I came across a dark corner beneath the window, where a large paper package containing white pigment had spilt onto the wooden floor some twenty-five years ago. I placed the scanner one centimetre above the fallen white pigment and reproduced the surface of the floor.”
Original works by the exhibited artists include a sculpture by Vanessa Beecroft, photography by Nan Goldin and Mary McCartney, a scenographic study by Katerina Jebb, a painting by Kim Gordon, and a mix-media work by Marilyn Minter.
An exterior installation will debut a limited series of digitally printed carpets (chromogenic prints on velour) by Katerina Jebb and Mary McCartney that seamlessly document a selection of works by the respective artists.
ERODE - MORPH - BLOOM will mark the first gallery-wide exhibition and officially unveil of Twentieth’s new location at 7729 Woodrow Wilson Drive in the Hollywood Hills, designed by Jeff Mills. The move was prompted by Twentieth’s Founders and Directors Stefan Lawrence and Daniele Albright’s desire to foster deeper exchange between designers, artists, and the gallery’s audience.