Stanley Whitney: There Will Be Song Book

June 10,2024

This book was published on the occasion of Stanley Whitney: There Will Be Song at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, an exhibition of vibrant, lyrical paintings made by the artist in 2022 and 2023..

This book was published on the occasion of Stanley Whitney: There Will Be Song at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London. The exhibition presented vibrant, lyrical paintings made by Whitney in 2022 and 2023 that have emerged from his ongoing investigation of color and composition. Working extemporaneously, Whitney paints saturated colors using active brushwork within a compositional structure of monochrome blocks demarcated by horizontal bands. The syncopated polyrhythms and chromatic harmonies in his paintings register beyond the visual, evoking a synesthetic merging of the senses.

Employing French-fold signatures featuring color plates and details of the fourteen paintings and a gatefold of the largest canvas alongside installation photography, the catalogue design emphasizes the individuality of each work and the recursive creativity of Whitney’s practice. In the essay “What You Want,” David Levi Strauss concentrates on Whitney as a colorist, analyzing the nature and resonance of this body of work. The book is available with four different covers illustrating details from the paintings Bridge (2022), Color Memories (2022), Stay Song 106 (2022), and There Will Be Song (2023).