Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley - Galerie Max Hetzler
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Bridget Riley may be best known for her analysis of optical phenomena in geometrical black and white paintings that define her starting point and made her one of the central figures in the Op art movement of the 60’s. In the stunning colour work that followed, she continued her exploration of perception through the relationship between structure and colour, always causing disorientation to the viewer’s eye, as her paintings seem to flicker, to pulsate and to convey an internal life. Bridget Riley, continuously carrying out new experiments, created her first wall painting in 2007. Besides her artistic practice, her theoretical writings had a considerable influence on a younger generation of artists.

"To follow very closely Riley’s work is to see that sameness is courted – because repetition is crucial to an artistic practice – but sameness is also avoided, because it is in the character of a true artistic practice to create change. So, to follow her work is to see that the continuity of artistic identity is asserted, not despite change, but because of change: because change is the very means of achieving continuity. [...] The surprise of the first encounter with one of her paintings is owing to an astonishment that an inanimate object has apparently come to life and – more than that – is in communion with the viewer. The viewer’s surprise is, we recognise, is a self-created surprise. Perception is the medium just as much as is the canvas and the paint – more so, in that a painting, the artist acknowledges, ‘only comes to life when looked at from a certain distance’. In a way, it doesn’t exist factually at all; only in the viewer’s perception."

John Elderfield, Creating a way of looking in Bridget Riley: Die Streifenbilder / The Stripe Paintings 1961-2012, Galerie Max Hetzler, Holzwarth Publications and Ridinghouse, 2013

Image: Arcadia 3 (Wall Painting), 2009, graphite and acrylic paint on plaster wall, 172,2 x 373,7 cm

Solo Exhibitions

BRIDGET RILEY - Galerie Max Hetzler

Measure for Measure

New Disc Paintings

57, rue du Temple, Paris

18 October – 25 November 2017
Bridget Riley - Galerie Max Hetzler

Bridget Riley

57, rue du Temple, Paris

5 May – 6 June 2015
Bridget Riley - Galerie Max Hetzler

Die Streifenbilder / The Stripe Paintings 1961–2012

(catalogue)

Oudenarder Straße 16-20, Berlin-Wedding

8 June – 18 July 2013
Bridget Riley - Galerie Max Hetzler

Paintings and Related Work 1983 – 2010 (catalogue)

Oudenarder Straße 16-20, Berlin-Wedding

12 February – 16 April 2011
Bridget Riley - Galerie Max Hetzler

Circles Colour StructureStudies 1970/71

Zimmerstraße 90/91, Berlin-Mitte

20 June – 25 July 2009
Bridget Riley - Galerie Max Hetzler

Bridget Riley

in cooperation with Galerie Aurel Scheibler, Berlin
(catalogue)

Zimmerstraße 90/91, Berlin-Mitte

15 September – 27 October 2007

Group Exhibitions

Then and Now - Galerie Max Hetzler

Then and Now

Anthony Caro, Barbara Hepworth, Bridget Riley, Edmund de Waal, Rebecca Warren

Bleibtreustraße 45, Berlin

6 March – 19 April 2014
REMEMBER EVERYTHING - Galerie Max Hetzler

REMEMBER EVERYTHING

40 Years Galerie Max Hetzler
Darren Almond, Glenn Brown, André Butzer, Rineke Dijkstra, Günther Förg, Mona Hatoum, Jeff Koons, Vera Lutter, Marepe, Beatriz Milhazes, Ernesto Neto, Frank Nitsche, Albert Oehlen, Yves Oppenheim, Richard Phillips, Michael Raedecker, Bridget Riley, Thomas Struth, Rebecca Warren, Christopher Wool, Toby Ziegler
(catalogue)

Oudenarder Straße 16-20, Berlin-Wedding

10 November – 21 December 2013

Selected Institutional Exhibitions

Bridget Riley

Dance

Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague

Permanent Installation
Bridget Riley

Venice and Beyond, Paintings 1967-1972

Graves Gallery, Sheffield

18 February – 25 June 2016
Bridget Riley

The Curve Paintings 1961-2014

De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill

13 June – 6 September 2015
Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

11 November 2014 – 8 March 2015
Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley

Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen

1 July – 11 November 2012
Bridget Riley - Kaiserringträgerin der Stadt Goslar

Bridget Riley - Kaiserringträgerin der Stadt Goslar

Mönchehaus Museum, Goslar

3 October 2009 – 31 January 2010

Biography

Show Vita
Show Selected Bibliography

Publications

Measure for Measure. New Disc Paintings - Galerie Max Hetzler

Measure for Measure. New Disc Paintings

Bridget Riley

Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris / Holzwarth Publications, Berlin 2018
With an essay by Éric de Chassey

€ 35,-

Purchase book Leaf through book
Bridget Riley - Galerie Max Hetzler

Bridget Riley

Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris / Holzwarth Publications, Berlin 2015
With a text by Éric de Chassey

Out of print

Leaf through book
THEN AND NOW - Galerie Max Hetzler

THEN AND NOW

Anthony Caro, Barbara Hepworth, Bridget Riley, Edmund de Waal, Rebecca Warren

Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris 2014
Text by Jurriaan Benschop

€ 15,-

Purchase book Leaf through book
REMEMBER EVERYTHING - Galerie Max Hetzler

REMEMBER EVERYTHING

Darren Almond, Glenn Brown, André Butzer, Rineke Dijkstra, Günther Förg, Mona Hatoum, Jeff Koons, Vera Lutter, Marepe, Beatriz Milhazes, Ernesto Neto, Frank Nitsche, Albert Oehlen, Yves Oppenheim, Richard Phillips, Michael Raedecker, Bridget Riley, Thomas Struth, Rebecca Warren, Christopher Wool, Toby Ziegler

Galerie Max Hetzler / Holzwarth Publications / Ridinghouse, Berlin and London 2014
With texts by Julie Sylvester and Jean-Marie Gallais
Edited by Jean-Marie Gallais

€ 45,-

Purchase book Leaf through book
Die Streifenbilder / The Stripe Paintings 1961–2012 - Galerie Max Hetzler

Die Streifenbilder / The Stripe Paintings 1961–2012

Bridget Riley

Galerie Max Hetzler / Holzwarth Publications / Ridinghouse, Berlin and London 2013 Texts by John Elderfield, Paul Moorhouse and Robert Kudielka

€ 35,-

Purchase book
Paintings and Related Work 1983–2010 - Galerie Max Hetzler

Paintings and Related Work 1983–2010

Bridget Riley

Galerie Max Hetzler / Holzwarth Publications / Ridinghouse, 2011
Texts by Bridget Riley and Robert Kudielka and a conversation between Bridget Riley and Lynne Cooke

Out of print

Bridget Riley - Galerie Max Hetzler

Bridget Riley

Galerie Max Hetzler / Galerie Aurel Scheibler, Berlin 2007
Text by Robert Kudielka

Out of print

Selected Press

The Japan Times June 2018

The Guardian 2015

Berliner Zeitung 2013

Süddeutsche Zeitung 2012

Flash Art 2011

Die Zeit 2011

The Wall Street Journal 2010

News

Bridget Riley

Giant Steps: Artists and the 1960s (group show)
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
30 June 2018 - 6 January 2019

As one of the most culturally and politically significant periods of the twentieth century, the 1960s also gave rise to numerous aesthetic innovations. Fueled by creativity and technological euphoria, artists began exploring new mediums and incorporating popular themes, motifs, and subjects into ...

Bridget Riley

Op Art in Focus (group show)
Tate Liverpool, Liverpool
21 July 2018 - 2 June 2019

A dazzling display from pioneering artists of the 1960s to today

Op art – short for optical art – emerged in the 1960s. Its leading figures included Bridget Riley, Jesus Rafael Soto and Victor Vasarely. They combined lines, geometric shapes and eye popping colour to create artworks that fool ...

Bridget Riley, Julian Schnabel et al.

Hello World. Revising a Collection (group show)
Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
28 April - 26 August 2018

„Hello World. Revising a Collection“ is a critical inquiry into the collection of the Nationalgalerie and its predominantly Western focus: What could the collection look like today, had an understanding characterised its concept of art, and consequently also its genesis, that was more open to the ...

Bridget Riley

Black & White. Painting from Dürer to Eliasson (group show)
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf
22 March - 15 July 2018

Grey, “the ideal colour “, according to Gerhard Richter. Artists have always been drawn to a world devoid of colour. By concentrating on black and white they encourage the viewer to take a fresh perspective on existing patterns of perception and artistic modes of presentation. Comprising around 80 ...

Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley: Paintings from the 1960s to the Present (solo show)
Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, Sakura
14 April - 26 August 2018

British artist Bridget Riley (born 1931) gained recognition beginning in the 1960's for her abstract paintings that employ geometric patterns in order to produce optical vibrations. Riley began her career painting landscapes in the style of Georges Seurat following early artistic studies that were ...
Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley (solo show)
The Chinati Foundation, Marfa
6 October 2017 - 2019

In October 2017 the Chinati Foundation will inaugurate a large new multicolored wall painting by Bridget Riley. The artwork has been conceived specifically for the museum’s special exhibition building and will encompass the entire U-shaped enclosure. The work will debut during Chinati Weekend, ...
Bridget Riley