Creating works with a fascinating range of tone and expression, Sean Scully’s oeuvre is a continuous exploration of his core motif of lines and swaths of color. Captivating the observer through an uncertainty of edges and brushstrokes that appear to exalt the materiality of paint, pigment, and abstraction, Scully experiments with a variety of media and materials. Material World provides insight into the artist’s practice and stylistic approach, which have evolved through a sustained engagement with the art historical tradition of Formalism. In an in-depth essay, Raphy Sarkissian situates Sean Scully’s art in dialogue with selected works of abstract and figurative, modern and pre-modern painting and sculpture, as well as with aesthetic theories. This dialogue translates further into the interplay of the museum’s architecture and the Neoclassical sculptures presented alongside Scully’s work.

SEAN SCULLY (*1945, Dublin) is one of the world’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. The oeuvre of the Irish-born artist, who grew up in London and moved to New York in 1975, is characterized by an intense confrontation with Abstract Expressionism, Action Painting, and Minimalism. Beyond a purely formal exploration of color, form, plane and light in his abstract paintings and sculptures, his visual expressiveness is matched by intellectually engaging writings and lectures. Scully lives and works in New York, Barcelona and near Munich.