For over forty years, Marian Goodman Gallery has played an important role in introducing European artists to American audiences and helping to establish a vital dialogue among artists and institutions working internationally.
For over forty years, Marian Goodman Gallery has played an important role in introducing European artists to American audiences and helping to establish a vital dialogue among artists and institutions working internationally.
“Artists are not teachers, of course. Good art is never a commentary. Rather, art is about life and can give an answer, a way for an individual to relate herself or himself to it.”
Marian Goodman Gallery was founded in New York City in late 1977. In 1995 the gallery expanded to include an exhibition space in Paris and in 2014 an exhibition space in London. In late 2016 she realized her dream of opening a bookstore and project space in Paris.
The London space will close at the end of 2020 as the gallery embarks on Marian Goodman Projects, a new initiative to present exhibitions and artist projects in London and other select cities around the world.
The Artists & Photographs portfolio is one of several critical publications to emerge in the context of Conceptual art. It was an attempt to show some of the changes in photography set into motion by artists from Warhol and Rauschenberg through to artists like Robert Smithson, Dan Graham, Richard Long, Sol LeWitt, Joseph Kosuth and Jan Dibbets to name a few.
Its cumulative achievement lies in its publication of seminal new works of Conceptual art by Mel Bochner, Dan Graham, Douglas Huebler, Sol Lewitt, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, and Robert Smithson, among others. The box contained works primarily in and on reproduction, fusing photography and painting.
In 1965, prior to the establishment of the gallery, Marian Goodman was a founder of Multiples, Inc. which published prints, multiples, and books by leading American artists, such as Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Dan Graham, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol. From 1968 to 1975, Multiples worked with European artists, introducing early editions by Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Blinky Palermo and Gerhard Richter to American audiences.
In 1974, after starting to work closely with Marcel Broodthaers, Goodman tried to find a gallery to represent him in New York. America’s knowledge of contemporary European art was scant at this time due to a lack of travel, exposure and exchange of information. She could not find a gallery for Broodthaers and decided to open a gallery of her own to show his work alongside that of other European artists.
Selecting Broodthaers (whom Goodman had met during the last year of his life) to open the Gallery was not only an homage to an artist whose epochal importance Goodman had recognized instantly, it also aimed to initiate a dialogue between American and European artists (which would indeed become and remain one of the distinguishing features of Goodman’s pursuits over the past 30 years.)
Since then, Goodman has used her gallery to show artists who are leaders of their generation: Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Chantal Akerman, Giovanni Anselmo, Leonor Antunes, Nairy Baghramian, John Baldessari, Lothar Baumgarten, Dara Birnbaum, Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Maurizio Cattelan, James Coleman, Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Tacita Dean, Rineke Dijkstra, Cerith Wyn Evans, Luciano Fabro, David Goldblatt, Nan Goldin, Dan Graham, Pierre Huyghe, Cristina Iglesias, Amar Kanwar, William Kentridge, Steve McQueen, Julie Mehretu, Annette Messager, Sabine Moritz, Juan Muñoz, Maria Nordman, Gabriel Orozco, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone, Gerhard Richter, Anri Sala, Matt Saunders, Tino Sehgal, Ettore Spalletti, Thomas Struth, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Niele Toroni, Adrián Villar Rojas, Danh Vo, Jeff Wall, Lawrence Weiner, James Welling, Francesca Woodman and Yang Fudong.
- Marian Goodman
Text excerpted from "30/40: A Selection Of Forty Artists From Thirty Years At Marian Goodman Gallery," edited and written by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, published by Marian Goodman Gallery. Image Credits: Portrait of Marian Goodman by Thomas Struth. Multiples artwork by Man Ray, 1964. Metronome with cutout photograph of eye on pendulum. Marcel Broodthaers, Tapis de Sable, 1974; Palm Tree in Pot, Sand.