To Bend the Ear of the Outer World: Conversations on contemporary abstract painting

This book was published on the occasion of To Bend the Ear of the Outer World: Conversations on contemporary abstract painting at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill and Davies Street, London. Curated by Gary Garrels, this expansive exhibition—presenting new and recent works by more than forty artists—examines the significance of abstract painting today, from Garrels’s perspective. Juxtaposing a diverse range of approaches to contemporary abstraction, it brings together paintings by three generations of artists from the Americas, United Kingdom, and Germany.

This fully illustrated catalogue contains reproductions of the exhibited paintings paired with remarks on abstraction and process by the artists, along with biographies for each. It includes a preface by Larry Gagosian and an essay by Garrels in which he recounts his own lifetime engagement with abstraction and offers insights into the organization of the exhibition. The cover features the title of the exhibition, which was derived from a verse by Frank O’Hara, intaglio printed in nine colors.