Painter Avery Singer, the 32-Year-Old Sought-After Phenom, Is Now the Youngest Artist Represented by Hauser & Wirth

The contemporary art world is always looking for the next big
thing—and, if you ask some experts, New York-based artist Avery
Singer is it.

Ever since the young painter parted ways with her New York
dealer Gavin Brown earlier this year, the industry has been
buzzing about what gallery would have the privilege of
representing her, with rumors that mega-businesses Gagosian, David
Zwirner, and Hauser & Wirth were all fighting for the chance.

Now, Singer has officially made her choice, signing with Hauser
& Wirth. The gallery will present four of her paintings at an the
upcoming Frieze Los Angeles fair in February ahead of a full solo
show in 2021. The artist will continue to be represented in Berlin
by gallery Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler.

A painter equally popular with collectors and curators, Singer
made her name by merging an innovative high-tech process with
classical painting tropes. She became known for black-and-white
gridded works based on illustrations made with the free 3D modeling
software SketchUp that depict the rituals of artistic life, from
studio visits to life-drawing classes.

She also made a splash at this year’s Venice
Biennale with her latest body of work—large paintings she
created by rendering images with sophisticated modeling software
and then airbrushing them onto canvas with a computer-controlled
printer—that look like a mashup between a video game and a
dream.

Hauser & Wirth’s vice president Marc Payot told Artnet News that
he became hooked on Singer’s work when he saw it for the first time
at the Kunsthalle Zürich roughly five years ago, and later in the
New Museum Triennial. (A testament to Singer’s charmed career,
the Zürich show came about after the museum’s
then-director, Beatrix Ruf, saw her first-ever gallery show in
Berlin.)

Payot praised Singer for creating a “bridge or
tension between a very extreme radical reinvention of what painting
can be today, but at the same time having references to art
history.”

The two first began speaking about her joining the gallery
around six months ago. “I think on one level, she is very much
mature and what she’s producing is of fantastic quality,” Payot
said. “Yet she’s still young in her career and needs a solid
platform which prioritizes that she can experiment and grow.”

Payot shot down rumors flying around last week’s
Art Basel Miami Beach fair—as news about Singer joining Hauser
& Wirth began to seep out—that she had been paid a $1 million
signing bonus. “It’s simply not true,” he said. “We don’t do that
with artists who come to the program because it would be a
completely wrong approach.”

That’s not to say Singer isn’t worth it. To date, her work has
popped up at auction 13 times, with her top sale, FELLOW
TRAVELERS, FLAMING CREATURES (2013), selling for $735,000,
more than six times its high estimate, at Sotheby’s in May 2018.
Singer has refrained from discussing her market, but advisors say
that some works have fetched as much as $1 million privately.

Singer is the latest young artist—and art-market phenom—to join
Hauser & Wirth’s stable. Although the gallery poached
two Impressionist and Modern
specialists from Christie’s last year, suggesting a shift
in focus toward the secondary market, it has been adding younger
artists at a steady clip recently, including 39-year-old Nicolas
Party.

But for Singer, the daughter of two artists, it was Hauser’s
relationship to older icons that sealed the deal. In a statement,
she recalled visiting Philip Guston’s work at the Museum of Modern
Art, where her father worked as a projectionist. She describes
spending “many hours” in front of Guston’s Cherries
(1976), “learning about my father’s deep
appreciation for it and its importance in art history. I
had the same experience with Louise Bourgeois, and my
mother’s profound personal connection with her radically
definitive oeuvre.” (Hauser & Wirth works with both artists’
estates.)

Singer added that “as an artist, I need a gallery collaboration
that is deeply committed to supporting a long trajectory of
experimentation and innovation that I will pursue over the course
of my career and my life.”

The post Painter Avery Singer, the 32-Year-Old Sought-After
Phenom, Is Now the Youngest Artist Represented by Hauser &
Wirth appeared first on artnet News.