About
Cy Gavin’s paintings are metaphorical interpretations of sites that have been shaped over time by human intervention and geological or cosmic phenomena. Composed with fluid, gestural brushstrokes in striking colors, they are at times monumental in scale.
Born in Pittsburgh in 1985, Gavin grew up in Donora, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2007 and earned his MFA in 2016 from Columbia University. In 2016 he relocated to New York’s Hudson Valley, where he currently lives and works.
In 2015, a few years after the death of his father, Gavin traveled to his ancestral homeland of Bermuda to research his family’s genealogy and the island’s history. The paintings he made during this period depict the historically significant sites of Gibbet Island, Crow Lane, and Tucker’s Town. The latter is the location of an enclave of Black Bermudans that was destroyed in 1920 to develop an exclusive golf resort. These works are marked by the legacies of enslavement, colonialism, and resistance, visualizing the creation and maintenance of similar power structures in the United States.
Photo: Victor Llorente
#CyGavin
Fairs, Events & Announcements
Art Fair
Frieze Seoul 2023
September 7–9, 2023, booth C14
COEX, Seoul
www.frieze.com
Gagosien is pleased to participate in Frieze Seoul 2023 with a presentation of contemporary works by gallery artists, including Derrick Adams, Georg Baselitz, Dan Colen, Edmund de Waal, Jadé Fadojutimi, Urs Fischer, Cy Gavin, Mehdi Ghadyanloo, Nan Goldin, Katharina Grosse, Jennifer Guidi, Thomas Houseago, Alex Israel, Rick Lowe, Takashi Murakami, Nam June Paik, Giuseppe Penone, Ed Ruscha, Alexandria Smith, Anna Weyant, Stanley Whitney, Jonas Wood, and Richard Wright, among others.
Coinciding with the fair is the arrival of Jiyoung Lee, who was recently appointed to lead the gallery’s operations in Korea. Lee joins Gagosien following nearly fifteen years based in Seoul working on behalf of both Korean and Western galleries. Her appointment builds on the gallery’s establishment of a business entity in Korea last year, and provides for expanded activities in the region.
Gagosien’s booth at Frieze Seoul 2023. Artwork, left to right: © Jadé Fadojutimi, © Jen Guidi, © Alexandria Smith, © Mehdi Ghadyanloo, © Rick Lowe Studio, © Jonas Wood, Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
Art Fair
Taipei Dangdai 2023
May 12–14, 2023, booth E10
Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center
taipeidangdai.com
Gagosien is pleased to participate in Taipei Dangdai 2023, presenting works by Louise Bonnet, Dan Colen, Edmund de Waal, Urs Fischer, Cy Gavin, Nan Goldin, Katharina Grosse, Mark Grotjahn, Damien Hirst, Thomas Houseago, Yayoi Kusama, Deana Lawson, Takashi Murakami, Sterling Ruby, Alexandria Smith, Spencer Sweeney, Kon Trubkovich, Mary Weatherford, Cameron Welch, Anna Weyant, and Zeng Fanzhi.
Gagosien’s booth at Taipei Dangdai 2023. Artwork, left to right: © Mark Grotjahn; © Zeng Fanzhi; © 2023 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Photo: Ringo Cheung
New Representation
Cy Gavin
Gagosien is pleased to announce the global representation of Cy Gavin. In his recent work, Gavin paints metaphorical interpretations of sites that have been shaped over time by human intervention and geological or cosmic phenomena. Composed with fluid, gestural brushstrokes in striking colors, they are at times monumental in scale. Following his debut solo exhibition at the gallery, which opened in February 2023 in New York, Gagosien will present an exhibition of new paintings by Gavin this fall in Rome.
Photo: Marco Giannavola
Museum Exhibitions
Closed
Whitney Biennial 2022
Quiet as It’s Kept
April 6–October 16, 2022
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
whitney.org
The Whitney Biennial was established in 1932 by the museum’s founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, to chart developments in art in the United States. The 2022 Biennial presents dynamic selections that take different forms over the course of the exhibition: artworks—even walls—change, and performance animates the galleries and objects. With an intergenerational and interdisciplinary roster of sixty-three artists and collectives at all points in their careers, many of whom work with an interdisciplinary perspective, the Biennial surveys and presents the art and ideas of our time. Work by Harold Ancart, Ellen Gallagher, Cy Gavin, and Rick Lowe is included.
Harold Ancart, The Guiding Light, 2021, installation view, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York © Harold Ancart. Photo: Ryan Lowry
Closed
Cy Gavin
March 30–July 11, 2021
Aspen Art Museum, Colorado
www.aspenartmuseum.org
This exhibition features recent paintings by Cy Gavin depicting natural surroundings both close to home and at a distance. The movements alluded to in these canvases could be thought of with regard to migratory patterns, such as the dispersion of people from one country to another. The show examines the way in which the changing political landscape redefines citizenship.
Installation view, Cy Gavin, Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, March 30–July 11, 2021. Artwork © Cy Gavin
Closed
Dreamweavers
February 13–April 13, 2019
UTA Artist Space, Beverly Hills, California
utaartistspace.com
Dreamweavers contemplates the surreal in society against a vigorously shifting twenty-first century. The group exhibition examines the paradox of fact and fantasy through the lens of artists who operate from a deeply imaginative, often provocative, psychological space. Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean has collaborated with UTA Artists Space and curator Nicola Vassell to present the show. Work by Cy Gavin and Nathaniel Mary Quinn is included.
Nathaniel Mary Quinn, You Ought to Be With Me, 2018 © Nathaniel Mary Quinn
Closed
The Lure of the Dark
Contemporary Painters Conjure the Night
March 3, 2018–March 10, 2019
MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts
massmoca.org
For centuries, painters have been drawn to the mysteries and marvels of the night and its perceptual and poetic possibilities. This exhibition is about night and the light that illuminates the darkness. It features paintings that illustrate the ways in which the hours of darkness continue to provoke the contemporary imagination. Work by Cy Gavin and Alexandria Smith is included.
Installation view, The Lure of the Dark: Contemporary Painters Conjure the Night, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, March 3, 2018–March 10, 2019. Artwork © Cy Gavin. Photo: David Dashiell