Sam Messenger British, b. 1980

Berggruen Gallery is proud to present Works in Black & White, a group exhibition that delves into the world of black and white as the primary, and often sole, colors. This curated collection explores the nuances of these two fundamental tones, reflecting on the various ways artists employ simplicity and complexity within this timeless palette. From bold abstractions to intricate minimalism, the exhibition reveals the artists' diverse abilities to convey emotion and provoke contemplation within the grayscale spectrum.

Works in Black & White will be on display from September 14 — October 13, 2023, featured on the top level of Berggruen Gallery.

Exhibiting Artists:

Robert Bechtle | Richard Diebenkorn | Lucian Freud | Michael Gregory | Philip Guston | Mona Hatoum | Al Held | Sarah Hotchkiss | William Kentridge | Anselm Kiefer | Matt Kleberg | Des Lawrence | Julian Lethbridge | Brice Marden | Sam Messenger | Martin Puryear | Linda Ridgway | Iran Do Espírito Santo | Richard Serra | Joel Shapiro | Kiki Smith | Jonas Wood

Berggruen Gallery is proud to announce Colour Veils, an exhibition of recent paintings and works on paper by Sam Messenger. This show marks his second solo exhibition with the gallery. Colour Veils will be on view from March 30 through April 29, 2023. The gallery will host a reception for the artist on Thursday, March 30, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.

Sam Messenger combines repetition and unpredictability to create delicate veils that evoke the organic patterns of billowing cosmic nebulas and crystalline gossamer. Colour Veils presents twenty new works created from Messenger’s methodological use of ink and acrylic on paper or linen. The tactile dimension of Messenger’s works reflects the artist’s meticulous handling of ink and pigment on paper - a manual technique that harkens back to his early training in graphic design, technical drawing, and printing practices. These new works represent a slight departure from those previously exhibited in Messenger’s 2017 eponymous exhibition with the gallery; While his earlier work predominantly featured backgrounds of varying shades of black and grey, Colour Veils incorporates an abundance of color – ruby-toned reds, creamy taupes, shades of indigo, and a stunning injection of sky-blue bring new life to this series of veils.

In this exhibition, Messenger continues experimenting with his chosen medium's organic capabilities while deftly addressing formal considerations such as tone, contour, and structure. This new body of work has been crafted entirely through freehand techniques, eschewing the use of rulers or straight edges. After the color surface is dry, Messenger meticulously applies the line-work, made up of tiny marks which follow a generative rule, covering the surface of the work in interlocking geometric patterns. This layering process instills the works with a kinetic energy, as planes of linear repetition swell and contract to create a fluid rhythm of spherical forms with a fibrous delicacy. Messenger's hand-drawn approach allows the artist's natural touch to infuse the underlying mathematical structure with subtle variations and idiosyncrasies, producing boundless waveforms with an ethereally animate quality. This structured yet unpredictable ebb and flow imbues each individual work with a uniquely mesmerizing textural quality and visual complexity.

Titles of individual works, such as Veil for Belladonna and Veil from Aconitum, reference various flowering plants, the colors of the backgrounds and foregrounds corresponding with the hue of its bloom. In this way, Messenger highlights his works' poetic qualities while suggesting a deeper connection to the natural world. Analogous patterns of mathematical structures and growth in nature are unearthed, as allusions to the Fibonacci sequence evoke the mysterious alchemy of the cosmos. As the thin lines of Messengers’ veils swell and undulate, these gauze-like geometric structures and floral hues intertwine to coalesce into a poetic expression of abstraction.

Sam Messenger was born in London in 1980. He received his M.A. at the Royal College of Art, where he was awarded the Parallel Prize in 2005. Messenger’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as The British Museum, London; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Courtauld Institute of Art, London; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach. Messenger’s art is also featured in numerous public and private collections, including The British Museum, London; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts; Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. Messenger currently lives and works in London.

Colour Veils, March 30 – April 29, 2023. On view at 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. Images and preview available upon request. For all inquiries, please contact the gallery by phone at (415) 781-4629 or by email at info@berggruen.com.

Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present Contemporary Paintings, an extensive exploration of light, color, and composition through the medium of paint. This exhibition will be on view June 22 - August 2020. You can view a selection of paintings from the exhibition through our ADAA viewing room here, or view the exhibition in person by scheduling an appointment here. For a more interactive view of the exhibition, we invite you to visit our virtual viewing room here.

From an exquisite example of Sean Scully’s Wall of Light series to the colorful environments of local, Bay Area painters Muzae Sesay and Jenny Sharaf, Contemporary Paintings abounds with saturated hues, graphic geometries, and varying techniques. Whether it be whimsical abstraction or meticulous realism, the paintings juxtapose one another to open dialogues regarding how artists render their surrounding world. The exhibition inaugurates the gallery’s reopening and summer programming, reflecting Berggruen Gallery's ongoing dedication to presenting exhibitions that bring together works from the contemporary canon and of historical significance. Furthermore, the show features a dynamic and diverse group of artists from several different countries, from the United States to South Korea to the United Kingdom, including works by:

Enrique Martinez Celaya
Mary Corse
Sarah Crowner
Austin Eddy
Matthew Feyld
Mark Fox
Shara Hughes
Matthew Day Jackson
Minku Kim
Paul Kremer
Des Lawrence
Julian Lethbridge
Sam Messenger
Odili Donald Odita
Clare Rojas
Sean Scully
Muzae Sesay
Jenny Sharaf

Contemporary Paintings, June 22 – August, 2020. On view by appointment only at 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. To schedule an appointment, please click here. Images and preview are available upon request. For all inquiries please contact the gallery by phone (415) 781-4629 or by email info@berggruen.com.

Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Sam Messenger on view November 2 through December 23, 2017. The gallery is proud to host Messenger’s first exhibition of works on the West Coast, as well as the artist’s first solo exhibition at Berggruen. A reception for the artist will be held on Thursday, November 2 from 5:00 to 8:00pm.

This exhibition features a selection of works on paper created throughout 2017 and paintings from 2014. Messenger’s recent works demonstrate the artist’s continuing engagement with intricate, geometric patterns that convey a sense of materiality and an illusion of depth through their interlacing, web-like designs. The tactile dimension of Messenger’s works reflects the artist’s meticulous handling of ink and pigment on paper - a manual technique that harkens back to his early training in graphic design, technical drawing, and printing practices. Messenger’s intensive, rules-based craft unfolds in the formation of grids drawn carefully by hand. This process involves using a straightedge to draw parallel lines, which he then carefully rotates to create depth and movement where the lines intersect. Messenger’s labor-intensive technique recalls his captivation with compass-and-straightedge designs as well as his early study of Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio.

Throughout his artistic career, Messenger has balanced his penchant for geometric precision with an approach to art-making that relies on natural processes and a degree of uncertainty. The artist continually returns to ephemeral and natural resources in his work, incorporating organic materials such as rain or snow throughout his practice. For example, Messenger has experimented with priming his paper by soaking sheets in the river before placing them onto snow. He then washes over the paper with black ink, combining natural and synthetic forms of liquid to saturate the original material.

As this exhibition demonstrates, embedded in Messenger’s art is a kinetic energy shaped by his exacting craft. To achieve a visual appearance of texture, Messenger experiments with the organic capabilities of his medium while addressing formal considerations such as tone, contour, and structure. Messenger’s artistic practice derives from a meticulous process of creation grounded in mathematical principles, yet the hand of the artist emerges in subtle distortions and idiosyncrasies across his work. He masterfully alters his color palette to create the illusion of cloud-like forms or soft ripples of water blanketed by a gossamer, web-like façade, while shifts in the texture, intensity, and spacing of the drawn or painted lines interrupt the patterns of his grid-like compositions, allowing the works to express a capricious and even sculptural dimensionality. The subtlety of these delicate transitions imbues Messenger’s work with a natural ease.

The mathematical framework of the artist’s mark-making recalls the structural harmony and order of Minimalist art, yet the ebb and flow of Messenger’s layered compositions proposes a coalescence between the organic qualities of his medium and his penchant for geometric precision. Planes of linear repetition swell and contract to create a fluid rhythm of spherical forms with a fibrous delicacy. This delicacy occurs as a result of layers upon layers of mark-making - a time-intensive technique that Messenger has developed throughout his career, yet no two works are identical. An element of unpredictability permeates the artist’s works, and throughout the layering process his compositions take shape without following a rigorous pattern or fixed plan. What Messenger thus brings forth is a probing of his medium’s potential - an exploration of the optical possibilities of ink and pigment through a unique visual language that he continues to expand with each of his striking designs.

Sam Messenger was born in London, England in 1980. He received his M.A. at the Royal College of Art, where he earned the Parallel Prize in 2005. Messenger’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Courtauld Institute of Art, London; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach. Messenger’s art is also featured in numerous public and private collections, including the Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown; Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Messenger lives and works in London.

Sam Messenger, November 2 – December 23. On view at 10 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. Images and preview are available upon request. For all inquiries, please contact the gallery by phone (415)781-4629 or email info@berggruen.com.

John Berggruen Gallery is pleased to present Four Decades: Drawings and Works on Paper, a group exhibition that invites a new perspective on a history of drawing and painting by integrating works from both well known and emerging artists. This exhibition will open on Thursday, May 1st, and will run through Saturday, June 28th. An opening reception will be held on May 1st, from 5:30-7:30 pm.

From Willem de Kooning’s playful oil jitney to Sam Messenger’s meticulously rendered “veils”, Four Decades: Drawings and Works on Paper jumps around the various inspirations of the artists included to present a group of works in a fresh context. This exhibition incorporates the work of monumental and historical artists such as Chuck Close, Willem de Kooning, Mark di Suvero, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Longo with dynamic new work from emerging artists such as Diana Al-Hadid and William Cordova, both New York City artists who have received major exhibitions in 2013.

Mid career artists such as Peter Doig, Spencer Finch and Julie Mehretu balance out this topographical collection of works; their inclusion points to the range of various surfaces and textures an artist can explore within the expanse of their career. Mehretu’s careful drawings and di Suvero’s ink tinkerings contrast in each artist’s interpretation of an architectural perspectivism. Roxy Paine’s light hearted drawings work to inspire simplicity of style: his drawing Study for Line, 2014 is a study for his upcoming commission for the new Central Subway Yerba Buena/Moscone Station at 4th and Clementina streets in San Francisco. Ellsworth Kelly’s perennially loved flower drawings round out the show to underscore for the viewer a focus and appreciation for the artist’s touch inherent in a single line. Every work in Four Decades: Drawings and Works on Paper is inflected but not weighed down by each different artist’s past and procedures.

For further information and photographs, please contact the gallery at 415.781.4629 or info@berggruen.com.