Maharam Serpentine Galleries Wallpaper at Frieze New York 05.15

For Frieze New York, Maharam introduces the Maharam Serpentine Galleries Wallpaper collection created by esteemed artists and architects under the curatorial direction of Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, of the highly influential Serpentine Galleries.

Frieze and Maharam’s close relationship has resulted in multiple collaborations in recent years, including a 180’-long installation of Shoes by Thomas Bayrle in the entrance corridor of Frieze London 2012 and last year’s recreation of Allen Ruppersberg‘s 1971 project, Al’s Grand Hotel, that embedded a functioning hotel within the New York fair. Now, for the fourth iteration of Frieze New York, the two organizations are partnering on a series of installations intended to activate public spaces throughout fair.  

(Nose/Popcorn – Yellow/Green) by John Baldessari, Watercolor Flowers by SANAA, SAIL ON by Lawrence Weiner, and Pavilion by Marc Camille Chaimowicz will be installed in the north entrance, auditorium vestibule, Marlow & Sons café, and south VIP desk respectively. The four featured wallpapers will be joined by nine others—including those by Ai Weiwei, Rosemarie Trockel, and Toyo Ito—to comprise the inaugural Maharam Serpentine Galleries Wallpaper collection. New works will be added to this uneditioned series over time.

Like Maharam Digital Projects, the wallpapers utilize advanced digital printing techniques for complex, high-resolution imagery in a full-color spectrum. The distinguishing feature is scale: the wallpapers reflect a traditional framework of modest repeats and a conventional 27” width. Available by the roll or by the linear yard through Maharam and the Serpentine Galleries shop, the wallpapers are intended for both commercial and residential application. Durable and easy to maintain, the collection is printed with UV-resistant inks on a washable, latex-reinforced substrate. A new product category for Maharam, wallpaper will develop into an expansive portfolio with designs by Paul Smith to follow later this year.

About the Artists
John Baldessari (b. 1931, United States) is a conceptual artist based in Santa Monica who uses text and appropriated imagery across painting, print, installation, and video. With deadpan humor, Baldessari’s work comments on the banalities and absurdities of popular culture. (Nose/Popcorn – Yellow/Green) is one in a series of wallpapers that isolates seemingly dissimilar elements to create formal visual relationships.

Marc Camille Chaimowicz (b. 1947, France) is a London- and Burgundy-based artist who is known for his theatrical installations that include photographs, fabrics, carpets, wallpaper, and ceramics. His work is heavily patterned, drawing upon the graphics of the arts-and-crafts era, while his pastel palette evokes midcentury Los Angeles and Miami Art Deco. Pavilion illustrates the verdant scene of London’s Hyde Park. The classic architecture of the Serpentine Gallery—once a royal tea pavilion—is depicted with soft lines and a muted palette. The stacked boulders are drawn from a temporary installation by artist duo Fischli/Weiss.

SANAA (founded 1995, Japan) is a Tokyo-based architecture firm founded by Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima. The firm’s work is characterized by an immaterial quality that is achieved through openness and a sensitivity towards nature’s elements, as demonstrated by their delicate, cloudlike design for the 2009 Serpentine Pavilion. Watercolor Flowers demonstrates a modern approach to traditional Japanese floral patterning through its informal, hand-painted quality.

Lawrence Weiner (b. 1942, United States) is a sculptor based in New York and Amsterdam and a founder of the conceptual art movement. In an effort to make art that is accessible, open-ended, mutable, and transferable, Weiner's primary medium is language. Since the 1970s, he has treated words as sculptural material through his installations, consisting solely of text painted in nondescript lettering on walls. Created for a child’s bedroom, SAIL ON depicts a fantasy voyage at sea. The three white hexagons represent ellipsis—a punctuation recognized across cultures to indicate et cetera, a continuation, an omission, or in Weiner’s usage, a suggestion to SAIL ON.

Frieze New York 2015
Established in 2012 by the founders of frieze magazine, Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, Frieze New York aims to create the ultimate art fair experience. The fourth edition of Frieze New York will feature over 190 of the world’s leading contemporary galleries, with sixty-three participants from the fair’s host city, plus a non-profit program of artist projects, education activities and talks. Situated in Randall’s Island Park, Frieze New York follows the establishment in 2003 of Frieze London, one of the world’s most influential contemporary art fairs, which takes place annually in Regent’s Park, London. In 2012, Frieze also launched Frieze Masters, which coincides with Frieze London and is dedicated to art from ancient to modern. Frieze fairs are sponsored by Deutsche Bank.

About Maharam
Founded in 1902, Maharam is North America’s leading creator of textiles for commercial and residential interiors. Recognized for its rigorous and holistic commitment to design, Maharam embraces a range of disciplines from product, graphic and digital design to art and architecture. Maharam is the recipient of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Design Patron Award. Maharam textiles are in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, among others. 

About the Serpentine Galleries
The Serpentine comprises two contemporary art galleries situated on either side of the Serpentine Lake in the heart of the Royal Park of Kensington Gardens in central London. The Serpentine Gallery and the newly opened Serpentine Sackler Gallery, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, present world-renowned exhibitions of art, architecture and design throughout the year with free admission.

Baldessari Nose/Popcorn Yellow/Green 001.tif

Hi-Resolution file size: 1.01 MB

Chaimowicz Pavilion 003

Hi-Resolution file size: 4.95 MB

SANAA Watercolor Flowers 001

Hi-Resolution file size: 2.42 MB

Weiner SAIL ON 001

Hi-Resolution file size: 427 KB
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