Until 7 February 2015: Julian Simmons at Paul Stolper, 31 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LH.

‘Sarah Lucas describes her partner and frequent collaborator Julian Simmons as “a Star-man with a pair of binoculars”, but this show also confirms that he is a highly skilled print-maker and significant artist in his own right.

For while the evident subject of these arresting and exquisitely produced prints is a series of Lucas’s soft, fleshy “Nud” sculptures made for a 2012 exhibition at the Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli in Mexico City, they also go way beyond mere depiction to take on an independent existence as autonomous works of art.

Like all good portraits, they animate and bring new insight to their sitters; and so powerful is their physical presence that you can’t help wondering what they all get up to once the gallery is shut up for the night.’   Louisa Buck, THE ART NEWSPAPER: The Buck stopped here—this week’s must see shows.

SEE THE SHOW…

Exhibition: 16 January – 7 February 2015, Paul Stolper, 31 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LH.

15 prints each in an edition of 6, signed and numbered on verso. Sheet size: 112.5 x 76.5 cm. Giclee inkjet, archival full-strength carbon-black pigment on Velin BFK Rives, traditional fine-art printmaking paper, mould-made, uncoated, buffered, no optical brighteners, 100% cotton rag, 280gsm. Photographs and printing by Julian Simmons.

“The thing about Julian is that he sees things in greater detail than anyone else I know.  Good for us that he’s also on a mission to show us how he does see it.  How to see.  For me especially, as we’re working so closely together.  These pictures are from our project in Mexico, TITTIPUSSIDAD.
  The muse of HOOLIAN is Julian.  He’s a Star-man with a pair of binoculars.”  
- Sarah Lucas

Paul Stolper is proud to present the HOOLIAN series of prints by Julian Simmons, each in an edition of 6, together with a large wallpaper piece.  All of the prints are illustrated in TITTIPUSSIDAD, the book designed by Simmons which documents his and Lucas’ seminal trip to Mexico in 2012, and which culminated in her exhibition at the Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli.

Beautiful in their own right, Simmons’ prints are also rich ‘portraits’ of Lucas’ sculptures, charting their genesis to the finished work, and as such act as the photographic counterpoint to Lucas’ practice.  Following in the tradition of Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, the prints inform the sculpture as much as the sculptures inform the prints.

For artwork enquiries and to RSVP to the private view, please contact alexandra@paulstolper.com

Check the gallery install photos…

“I got to know these people – Diego Riviera, Alejandro Jodorowsky – I got so clear with them by being there, as well as some of the old Gods.  It was a brilliant trip, how do you do that again?  I don’t know. But things as good as that?  Yes please.

It can be fantastic, when the circumstances are very inspiring, which is what Oaxaca in Mexico is.  I didn’t run into any problems, it just sort of went – it had the wind behind it, or a volcano.  We made a book from our experience, a storybook with pictures about the time we spent there.  It’s not like a catalogue or anything – it’s an artwork in itself”, Sarah Lucas.

Read the full interview in AnOther Magazine.