12.04.2025-02.28.2026
REVIVAL II - THE RENAISSANCE
Ann Agee - Waseem Ahmed - Helen Flockhart - Philippe Fretz - Ayana V. Jackson - Vladimir Kartashov - Sylvie Lambert - Giuliano Macca - Sébastien Mettraux - Anastasia Norenko - Bryan Rogers - Ella Walker
REVIVAL II – THE RENAISSANCE is the second exhibition in GOWEN’s ongoing REVIVAL series, following the inaugural presentation in 2023. Building on an original concept conceived by founder, director and curator Laura Gowen, the show brings together twelve international artists whose works explore how contemporary practice reimagines and transforms imagery from the art historical canon.
For this edition, the show devotes itself to the Renaissance, a period defined by classical revival, knowledge and innovation, and a heightened focus on the human figure. This renewed invitation to look backward and forward at once considers how artists continue to turn their gaze toward the Old Masters, just as their forebears of the 14th to 16th centuries returned to classical antiquity to envision their future. The presentation underlines how the Renaissance is not simply a historical moment, but a living point of reference - one that remains fertile ground for investigation, reinvention, and dialogue.
Through highly experimental approaches to their chosen media together with deep, critical inquiry, the participating artists engage such legacies in diverse ways - reframing ideals of beauty and harmony, reworking allegory and myth, or reflecting on the traditions of identity and representation within art history - and the voices these legacies have conventionally emphasized. Their intentions are deliberate, raising essential questions surrounding the nature of their engagement: Is it homage or reverence? Subversion? Or a way to interrogate, expand, or challenge inherited narratives?
By seeking in historical forms a way to confront contemporary concerns, the works in the exhibition evoke universal themes found across cultures and eras: the human condition, spirituality, identity and belonging, and humanity’s evolving relationship with nature.
Spanning painting to photography, sculpture to newly commissioned installations, the presentation includes two unique, late 15th century illuminated manuscripts, one by French scribe Johannes Francigena. The rare Book of Hours, produced in Italy on parchment in tempera, ink and gold and of Roman and Franciscan use, has been loaned specifically for the show.
Image
Giuliano Macca, Teti, 2023
Oil on canvas
30 x 23 cm
Courtesy of GOWEN and Private Collection. © Giuliano Macca