The Paula Cooper Gallery will present a group exhibition entitled From the Observatory, curated by Robert Nickas. The exhibition will revolve around a gallery within the gallery, with works and situations which aim to create a heightened awareness on the part of the viewer. In its self-reflection, the exhibition can be seen as an essay in real space, tracing connections between this impulse as it first appeared in the ’60s and as it continues today.

Participating artists include: Ricci Albenda, Diane Arbus, Barry X Ball, Gene Beery, Alex Brown, Maurizio Cattelan, Vija Celmins, Verne Dawson, Jessica Diamond, Sam Durant, Olafur Eliasson, William Gedney, Wayne Gonzales, Philip Guston, Douglas Huebler, Peter Hujar, On Kawara, Yayoi Kusama, Sherrie Levine, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Gordon Matta-Clark, John Miller, Olivier Mosset, Steven Parrino, Adrian Piper, Lisa Ruyter, Sam Samore, Paul Thek, Wolfgang Tillmans, John Tremblay, Joan Wallace, Kelley Walker, Dan Walsh, and Lawrence Weiner.

Robert Nickas, a critic and independent curator based in New York, has organized nearly forty shows over the past seventeen years. He collaborated on Cady Noland’s installation for Documenta IX in 1992; was one of the curators of Aperto ’93 in the Venice Biennale; and in 1994, a survey of American photography and a retrospective selection of date paintings by On Kawara, which was mounted at Paula Cooper Gallery, later traveled to museums in Europe and Japan. One of his earliest shows, Red (1984), was re-created as part of a major exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1998.

His book, Live Free or Die: Collected Writings 1985-1999, was published last year by les presses du réel. He is the founding editor of Index magazine, contributes regularly to Artforum, Purple, and Dutch, and teaches in the School of the Arts at Columbia University.

From the Observatory opens on 16 March and runs through 20 April, 2002, at Paula Cooper Gallery, 534 West 21st Street, New York.

For more information, please contact the gallery: (212) 255-1105 or
info@paulacoopergallery.com