With an Expansive David Zwirner Show and a Traveling Survey Show, Lisa Yuskavage Is About to Be Everywhere

The artist will also be honored with this year's Aspen Art Award.

Lisa Yuskavage. Photo by EJ Camp, courtesy the artist and David Zwirner.

Get ready to hear—or rather, see—a lot from Lisa Yuskavage.

This week, David Zwirner will unveil two simultaneous solo outings featuring her dreamy figurative paintings in New York. And today, the Aspen Art Museum announced that it will organize a solo show of her work with the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2020. Ahead of the exhibition, the Colorado museum will also honor the artist at its 2019 Artcrush gala with the 2019 Aspen Award for Art.

Heidi Zuckerman, the Aspen Art Museum’s director, praised Yuskavage in a statement, saying, “her paintings carry a magical resonance that transcends genre and timeliness, as prescient as they are seductive.”

Born in 1962, Yuskavage did her undergrad at the Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia before completing an MFA at Connecticut’s Yale University School of Art in 1986. She made a name for herself with colorful, often sexualized paintings depicting the female body, at once grotesque and angelic, cartoonish and deeply rooted in art historical tradition. By blending realism and fantasy, Yuskavage challenges conventional expectations surrounding figurative painting.

Lisa Yuskavage, Frannie (1997). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, Frannie (1997). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

The joint Aspen and Baltimore exhibition follows the artist’s 2015 exhibition—her first solo US museum show in 15 years—at the Rose Art Museum (where Chris Bedford, the Baltimore Museum’s current director, formerly worked). In her upcoming outing at Zwirner, Yuskavage will show eight new large paintings at the gallery’s Upper East Side space, accompanied by the first survey of the artist’s small-scale paintings, which have been a consistent part of her practice, on 19th Street in Chelsea.

Yuskavage will receive the Aspen Award for Art, which recognizes “artists who have made exemplary contributions through their artistic practice to the global dialogue on contemporary art,” according to the museum, on August 2, 2019.

See works from the artist’s upcoming Zwirner exhibitions below.

Lisa Yuskavage, <em>Half-Family</em> (2003). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, Half-Family (2003). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, <em>Little Hippies</em> (2013). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, Little Hippies (2013). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, <em>Little Kingdom</em> (2005). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, Little Kingdom (2005). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, <em>Split</em> (1997). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, Split (1997). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, <em>Suburbs</em> (2017). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, Suburbs (2017). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, <em>Stoned</em> (2016). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, Stoned (2016). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, <em>The Deer</em> (2014). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, The Deer (2014). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, <em>Golden Couple</em> (2017). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, Golden Couple (2017). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage.

Lisa Yuskavage, Self Portrait (2017). Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, ©Lisa Yuskavage, collection of Susan and Leonard Feinstein.

Lisa Yuskavage: Babie Brood – Small Paintings 1985–2018” will be on view at David Zwirner, 533 West 19th Street, New York, November 8–December 15, 2018. The opening reception will be Thursday, November 8, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.

Lisa Yuskavage: New Paintings” will be on view at David Zwirner, 34 East 69th Street, New York, November 8–December 15, 2018. The opening reception will be Thursday, November 8, 5 p.m.–7 p.m.


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