Tiergarten, Berlin
Adam Pendleton
Spray Light Layer Emerge
Pace GalleryPace is pleased to present Spray Light Layer Emerge, an intimate selection of paintings and works on paper from Adam Pendleton's Black Dada and Untitled (Days) bodies of work, presented across both floors of Die Tankstelle, the gallery's new space in Berlin. The exhibition's title, Spray Light Layer Emerge, reflects the various "acts" played out in the Black Dada paintings: materially, theoretically, poetically, and ultimately, visually. A central figure in contemporary American painting, Pendleton is known for continuously redefining the medium as it relates to process and abstraction. His paintings begin on paper by exploring the full breadth of mark-making. He layers paint, spray paint, ink, and watercolor, while integrating fragmentary text and geometric forms, often using stenciling techniques. These works on paper are photographed and then combined through a screen-printing process. Blurring distinctions between painting, drawing, and photography, the resulting paintings are tangible manifestations of his belief in painting as a powerful "visual and conceptual force." Pendleton's Black Dada paintings, shown on the first floor, are conceptually rich and subtly expressionistic: thought-acts suspended in mid-flight, the ghost of an urban scrawl, the impression of dispersed and diffused light. Composed as diptychs on black-gessoed grounds, they direct attention to the fundamental attributes of painting—surface, edge, figure, ground—and to the artist's unique approach to compositional logic and visual thought. Each painting features one or two hard-edged letters from the phrase Black Dada, which function as a "figure" within each composition. Black Dada refers to Pendleton's ongoing exploration of conceptions of Blackness and abstraction. These textual characters hang, rest, or hover within the visual field—where drips, sprays, splatters, and other gestures play against an invisible grid set by the symmetry of the diptychs. By foregrounding the modes and methods of composition, Pendleton's Black Dada works invite viewers to engage with and question the formal, conceptual, and material possibilities of painting itself. On the ground floor, a selection of drawings further articulates Pendleton's ongoing commitment to experimentation with mark-making, and with processes of transformation and translation across media. Pendleton is currently the subject of a major exhibition at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Adam Pendleton: Love, Queen—his first solo exhibition in the city—runs from April 4, 2025, through January 3, 2027, and features new and recent paintings alongside a single-channel video. The exhibition highlights Pendleton's singular contributions to contemporary American painting and engages with both the architecture of the museum and the historical context of the National Mall.