Josh Pazda Hiram Butler

Josh Pazda Hiram Butler is pleased to present Drew Bacon: Paper Rituals, featuring a selection of new works on paper and animations by the artist. Drawing from a wide range of source material, including atlases, produce stickers, and encyclopedias, Bacon reinvigorates information systems—some on the verge of extinction—with a playful sensibility. In two concurrent bodies of work spanning four years, Bacon’s collagic approach to image making utilizes both digital and analogue processes, including paper collage, animation, and digital drawing. Linked together by divergent meditations on aspects of landscape, Bacon’s recent works suggest an expansive and compelling afterlife for overlooked or outmoded media. A frequent source of inspiration for Bacon is the ubiquitous yet easily forgettable produce sticker, manipulated by Bacon to unexpected heights of perceptual enchantment. Tiny but powerful, Bacon’s produce sticker collages on paper transform familiar logos and barcodes into succinct abstractions that handsomely float in carefully calibrated sequences. However, in Bacon’s animations, reminiscent of Harry Smith’s or Norman McLaren’s early abstract films, the stickers bubble with whimsy while dancing into unpredictable configurations. Bacon’s digital drawings, printed at more than twenty times the size of their original source, elicit a painterly aura as ink dapples and congeals into glitchy swirls of color. With each approach to the produce sticker, Bacon awakens intrinsic affective possibilities that have until now lain dormant within this banal icon of consumer culture. While Bacon’s use of produce stickers references landscape, albeit once removed, a series of new paper collages take landscape as their subject directly. Ritual of Kanan comprises four large-scale panels made of collaged National Geographic atlas fragments, that each feature a central mound-like form. With a titular nod to a specific landscape that the artist became acquainted with on frequent surfing expeditions in Los Angeles, these imaginary landscapes all but tremble with topographic texture as geographic signifiers collide across the picture plane in a splendor of controlled chaos. In a series of related collages, Bacon figures the mound forms from colorful encyclopedia fragments on a much smaller scale. In Bacon’s hands, the atlas and encyclopedia become cognitive sub-soil, a jumble of loose organic matter from which emerge the majestic hillsides and mounds of the imagination. Throughout Paper Rituals, Bacon demonstrates an attunement to the poetic possibilities of everyday objects as he salvages mundane but condensed signifiers of information from across the compost heap of culture and shapes them into surprising new forms teeming with vitality. Drew Bacon (b. 1988, San Antonio, TX) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Bacon’s work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles; POST, Houston; and Josh Pazda Hiram Butler, Houston. Bacon’s work has been featured in FotoFest Biennial, Houston, and is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. His short films have been screened in Film Festivals such as Oaxaca Film Festival and Esto Es Para Esto. Bacon holds a BFA in painting and drawing from Pratt Institute and an MFA in experimental animation from California Institute of the Arts.

Josh Pazda Hiram Butler is pleased to feature a solo presentation of drawings by Kyung-Lim Lee at the TD Bank Curated Spotlight section of NADA New York 2025, organized by Owen Duffy, Nancy C. Allen Curator and Director of Exhibitions at Asia Society Texas. Reflecting her long-standing interest in the ellipse as a generative form, Lee’s latest drawings explore the meditative power of geometric abstraction to manifest mysterious and inviting evocations of the four seasons. Utilizing ellipse-shaped canvases as an alternative to the perceived confines of a rectangular support, Lee’s drawings become portals to a cosmic refuge where time thickens, space expands, and the bright light of reality begins to soften and glow. Lee’s artistic practice is rooted in a meditative engagement with linguistic concepts, often derived from Chinese characters. Words become touchstones for the creation of abstract visual forms, which can take nuanced and dynamic appearances that range in tone, color, shape, and rhythm. Lee’s latest drawings from her Penumbra series reward close observation as pan pastel and color pencil are subtly deployed to evoke the elusive nature of light and time. At moments reminiscent of Mark Rothko or Kazimir Malevich, the interaction of shape and color within Lee’s drawings imbues her subject with an expressive and emotive force that suggests the spiritual and transcendent. The centerpiece of Lee’s presentation at NADA is the monumentally scaled multi-panel construction, Ellipses (2009), a 78-panel grisaille polyptych comprised of repeated geometric shapes rendered with dry pigment and India ink on clay board. The material heft of this work emphasizes drawing-as-object, physically manifesting forms of step pyramids that are deeply rooted in the artist’s visual lexicon. Through repetition, layering, and patterning of squares and ellipses, Lee creates a vibrant and dynamic field that pulses with the entrancing interplay between unity and division, light and dark, absence and presence. By carefully rendering the ellipse with unwavering accuracy, Lee transforms this shape into a conduit for contemplating the perceptual mysteries of life. Kyung-Lim Lee (b. 1957, Seoul, Korea) lives and works in Oxford, MD and Flagstaff, AZ. Lee has had solo exhibitions at Josh Pazda Hiram Butler, Houston; Häusler Contemporary, Zürich; The Temple Hotel, Beijing; Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD; Diözesanmuseum, Freising, among others. Group exhibitions include Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale; Haus der Kunst, München; The Park Avenue Armory, New York; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; and the Asian American Arts Centre, New York, among others. Lee’s work has been collected by the Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the University of Texas at Austin, among others.

This exhibition features drawings and sculpture in dialogue with one another, foregrounding drawing as a rigorous and consistent aspect of the artist’s studio production over three decades (1993-2022). In contrast to the singularity and uniqueness that characterize his sculptures (which are painstakingly fabricated in collaboration with a foundry), Havel’s drawings are often executed serially and emphasize the performative aspect of their making. Each of the gallery’s three spaces pairs a single sculpture with a series of drawings and includes rarely seen works—many of which are exhibited for the first time here. Pairing drawings that were made years apart from the sculptures that they are shown with, this exhibition seeks to highlight through lines among the artist’s seemingly diverse bodies of work. In addition to emphasizing Havel’s deeply rooted visual sensibility, these pairings also make clear that action and movement are ever-present in his work—whether in gestural passages on paper or in cast bronze works that appear to defy gravity.

Time•Line is an exhibition organized on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the gallery. In a playful twist of the conventional understanding of the word timeline, the works in this exhibition signify notions of time and line in equal measure. Each of the gallery’s three spaces presents a distinct rumination on these themes. Produced between 1978-2024, these works span across media, including sculpture, drawing, prints, painting, photography, and installation. South Gallery (Endless, Indelible, Elegiac): Nancy Brooks Brody, Tony Feher, Joseph Havel Entry Gallery (Liminal Doubles): Jason Moran, Fred Sandback, Robert Wilson North Gallery (Sequence, Systems, Seasons): Jennifer Bartlett, Matt Magee, Bill Jacobson, Kate Shepherd

Organized around Kleberg's yearslong exploration of the arch as a visual motif, this exhibition presents works that span the breadth of the artist's studio production, including paintings, drawings, editions, and monoprints.

Organized by Adam Marnie Stephanie Boone and Will Boone Dawn Cerny (Steel Stillman) Scott Covert Liz Deschenes and Alan Ruiz Barbara Ess and Megan Plunkett Jamie Fletcher Mark Flood Eli Greene Skylar Haskard and Devin T. Mays Christopher K. Ho and Kevin Zucker Brandon Jerrod and Bria Lauren Matt Kenny Justin Lieberman, Mariah Robertson, and Stephanie Weber Adam Marnie Adam Marnie and Aura Rosenberg NOWORK Nancy Shaver (Steel Stillman) Supportgroup123 Matt Wycoff and Unknown & A Portrait of Barbara Ess

This exhibition of works on paper presents a cross-generational pairing of two artists that are best known for their sculptural studio production. In addition to a shared material preference for carving wood to create their sculptures, Marisol and Hoehn’s works also prominently figure the female body as a subject at human scale. In their works on paper, both artists couple aspects of fragmentation and hybridity, elucidating visual and conceptual affinities that contemplate notions of feminine beauty, eroticism, horror, and fantasy.

Founded in 2021 by Kyle Simon and Sarah LaChance, Farrington Press is an off-grid, solar-powered print shop located at the base of the Farrington Observatory in the mountains outside Joshua Tree, CA. Working collaboratively with invited artists to create editions and monotypes, Farrington Press has published works by Heather Day, Tara Donovan, Matt Kleberg, Lily Stockman, Honor Titus, Martha Tuttle, and Mary Weatherford. Their prints have been acquired by The National Gallery of Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Smith College Museum of Art, The Flint Institute of Arts, and The Farnsworth Art Museum. “Existing in a wild, remote environment requires us to be at the mercy of nature. Our water is hauled in from a nearby spring, and our drive to town is down a rough, off-roading trail. As a direct result of these limitations, Farrington has cultivated a sense of resourcefulness in all our collaborations. We understand the importance of uninhibited experimentation when it comes to creating prints, and have dedicated our space and time to pushing the limits of printmaking.” - Kyle Simon & Sarah LaChance In partnership with Farrington Press, Josh Pazda Hiram Butler has co-published three editions and numerous monoprints by Martha Tuttle, Matt Kleberg, and Tara Donovan. We are delighted by the work we've done together and look forward to many fruitful collaborations in the future.

This exhibition is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Drew Bacon Jack Davidson David Hutchinson Terrell James Matt Kleberg Matt Magee Sam Reveles Brooke Stroud

In the midst of the Whitney Museum’s 2014/2015 departure from 945 Madison Avenue—the iconic building designed by Marcel Breuer—Bill Jacobson was given permission to photograph the building’s interior over the course of two weeks. The majority of its contents had been removed, and renovations by the museum’s next tenant had not yet begun. Working in this interim period allowed Jacobson to make the building itself his subject, which he hoped “to depict as it might’ve looked to Breuer upon its completion in 1965.” The resulting portfolio of thirty photographs is an intimate portrait of a well-known structure that captures its iconic features (ceiling, lights, windows, walls, elevators, and stairs), as well as the remarkable details of Breuer’s choice of building materials. Within the images are a variety of patinas generated by millions of bodies perambulating throughout the building over five decades. Over the past eight years, this storied location has been temporarily inhabited by two notable museums: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met Breuer), and The Frick Collection (Frick Madison). The evolution of the building’s occupants, and the spectra of art shown in its galleries, have provided transformative contexts for looking at art. More recently, it was announced that 945 Madison Avenue has been purchased by Sotheby’s. In light of this, Jacobson’s images allow us to see and understand the building in a pure state—not untouched, but fully lived through the first of its many lives. Bill Jacobson has been making photographs for over forty years. Though his methods have varied considerably, the work is joined by underlying concerns with memory, visual perception, and the subtle dialogue between absence and presence. Prior to moving to New York in 1982, he received a BA from Brown University (1977) and an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute (1981). He has exhibited widely in the US and Europe, and is in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum; Whitney Museum; John Paul Getty Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Brooklyn Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Victoria and Albert Museum; and many others.

Matt Magee: Animal Vegetable Mineral / Photo Composites (1980-2005) is a survey of a body of photographic works that spans nearly three decades. Beginning in 1980, Magee began shooting 35mm film with a Rollei camera, and abutted commercially developed 3 1/2 x 5 inch color prints together in pairs on slightly larger substrates. By seamlessly combining two images in each work, Magee poetically synthesized a new whole. The subjects of Magee’s images are quite varied, but have several consistent points of connectivity that are bookended by everyday observations and constructed or performed scenarios. These include the likenesses of friends, lovers, and family, scenes from travel, as well as objects from nature and culture. The physicality of these printed objects situates them firmly in a pre-digital era, before the ubiquity of digital cameras and the decline of commercial photo labs in the 2000s. This body of nearly one thousand works functions both as a personal archive and as a visual framework that encapsulates Magee’s foundational approach to image making, which is evident in his wide ranging practice that includes painting, sculpture, and printmaking.

Robert Rauschenberg The Fifth Veil is an exhibition that focuses on three lithographs that the artist made at Universal Limited Art Editions on Long Island in 1974-75: Treaty (1974), Kitty Hawk (1974), and Kill Devil Hill (1975). In the sequence of Rauschenberg’s print output, these works immediately follow a series of four lithographs titled Veils 1-4 (1974) that each depict an isolated image of a neckerchief that belonged to ULAE’s founder, Tatyana Grosman. The image of a fifth Veil was recorded in the same proofing session, and though it was not published as an individual print, the image would appear in the three aforementioned lithographs among an array of layered images. Many of the images that appear alongside the Veil are Rauschenberg’s own photographs that were taken in and around the print studio including paper bags, cheesecloth, a child’s shirt, and a fire exit sign. One particularly notable image of a mangled bicycle appears in both Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hill, which may be recognizable to some viewers as a tribute to the Wright Brothers, whose bicycle business in Dayton, Ohio, largely funded their early experiments in modern aviation. The assembly of these three works offers a rare opportunity to delve into Rauschenberg and ULAE’s experimental approach to printmaking on a large scale.

A site-specific wall painting by New York-based artist Kate Shepherd, on view through the front windows of the gallery

An exhibition of new paintings by New York based painter Matt Kleberg.

Jennifer Bartlett Daniel Buren David Hutchinson Matt Kleberg Matt Magee Robert Rauschenberg Kate Shepherd Martha Tuttle Terry Winters