José Lerma: European Mixed Masters
Andrea Rosen Gallery – Gallery 2
May. 7, 2024 - Jun. 14, 2014
José Lerma’s fourth solo show with Andrea Rosen Gallery features a series of five paintings inspired by Palissot’s Critique de la Tragédie de Charles IX, a light comedy about a historical tragedy that became a catalyst for the French Revolution. Lerma has cast four iconic tennis players from the 1980s as characters from the play. Painted on reflective Mylar and rendered in silhouette in late 18th-century fashion, the protagonists face off in a conceptual and abstracted mixed doubles match. Observing this action unfold, from the west wall of the gallery, is a large-scale, intricately rendered scene of a theater audience based on Pietro Martini’s classic engraving, The Exhibition at the Salon Du Louvre in 1787.