Geoffrey Hendricks: Berlin Sky Drawings

Geoffrey Hendricks, Berlin Sky Drawings

September 9 – October 15, 2022

Opening reception: Friday, September 9, 6-8PM

This September, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery has the privilege to present a show of works by the late Geoffrey Hendricks (1931-2018). The exhibition will comprise sculptures, paintings and installations from different time periods within the celebrated artist and educator’s long career.

Central to the gallery’s exhibition will be a partial recreation of a 1984 show in Germany, titled “Berlin Sky Drawings,” which featured graphite images of clouds recently rediscovered in Hendricks’s archive, a travel trunk which survived flooding during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and a roomful of leaves taken from New York City parks. The show will also include one of Hendricks’s “Sky Ladder” works displaying a series of watercolors, and a painted “Sky Laundry” piece suspended from the wall. Together, this installation seeks to present a range of the influential artist’s practice to a new audience.

Known as “Cloudsmith” during his lifetime, Hendricks painted images of cerulean blue skies with puffs of white clouds on a panoply of objects including traditional stretched canvas, but also laundry hung on lines, a garden shovel with rocks, and a driveable Volkswagen, to name a few. The artist often worked with natural and found materials such as leaves and branches, as well as old ladders and chairs, sourced from whatever locale he exhibited in. His installations frequently acted as stages for his performances, which embodied a sense of chance and possibility.

Geoffrey Hendricks (1931–2018) was an American artist associated with Fluxus, living and working in New York City and Nova Scotia. He taught at Rutgers University from 1956 to 2003, and then became professor emeritus of art. From the mid-1960s Hendricks exhibited internationally and participated in Fluxus festivals. In 2002, he edited Critical Mass: Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University, 1958–1972, a book that documents the seminal creative activity and experimental work of faculty members such as Bob Watts, Allan Kaprow, George Brecht, Hendricks, and others.

The show is assembled in collaboration with Sur Rodney (Sur), Hendricks’s spouse along with artists/archivists Brad Melamed and Andrea Evans of the Hendricks Estate.

For images or more information please contact the gallery at klaus@klausgallery.com or call 212-777-7756

Download a pdf of this press release here.