Peter Nagy, the US-born gallerist and artist whose experimental style formed Indian up to date artwork, has died, aged 67. Nature Morte, the Delhi- and Mumbai-based gallery he based, confirmed his loss of life yesterday (13 October) on social media, writing that “he handed away after a protracted sickness”.
Nagy got here of age as an artist within the Nineteen Eighties East Village scene in New York. Embracing concepts of neo-conceptualism, post-minimalism and even institutional critique, whereas satirically adopting the aesthetics of Pop Artwork, he made work that addressed rampant consumerism and a quickly digitising picture tradition.
Early black-and-white collages, work and vinyl works of his have been exhibited in 2020 at Jeffrey Deitch gallery in New York, in collaboration with Magenta Plains. These included his anti-commodity Xerox collection—giant paper collages of brand name logos and ads—whereas his Most cancers work “utilized the pathology of most cancers to the manufacturing of indicators, creating ‘cells’ by sandwiching logos and different graphic components till defamiliarised and abstracted”, in response to the Jeffrey Deitch gallery exhibition notes.
This self-conscious engagement with up to date artwork discourse and urge for food for the avant-garde equally knowledgeable Nature Morte, the gallery Nagy co-founded in 1982 in New York with the artist Alan Belcher. Exhibitions it held in its early years featured now vastly influential figures like Gretchen Bender, Vito Acconci and Not Very important alongside a number of Footage Era artists comparable to Cindy Sherman and Sherrie Levine.
Finally Nagy closed the New York gallery and commenced travelling to New Delhi, the place he moved in 1992, re-opening Nature Morte as a industrial enterprise and curatorial venture for up to date South Asian artwork in 1997.
From the time he moved to India till his loss of life, Nagy remained one of many few foreign-born sellers of South Asian up to date artwork. He’s credited with bringing the New York mannequin of the artwork gallery to India, and it was partially this outsider perspective that made him so adept at figuring out artists whose work would translate onto the worldwide stage. He in contrast this to how “Pierre Matisse, Ileana Sonnabend, and Leo Castelli introduced the European mannequin to New York earlier than I used to be born”, in a 2022 interview with Artnet.
Working initially of the brand new millennium as a technology of South Asians artists have been experimenting with type and idea—and buoyed by a quickly rising Indian artwork market—Nagy performed a number one position in launching the careers of among the subcontinent’s largest artwork stars. Nature Morte counts amongst its 41-strong artist roster among the area’s most influential names, together with Jitish Kallat, Raqs Media Collective, Reena Saini Kallat, Bharti Kher and Imran Qureshi.
Of India’s main gallery’s, Nature Morte’s programme has been one of the vital experimental and peripatetic, having launched outposts in collaboration with New York’s Bose Pacia gallery in Kolkata (2006-09) and in Berlin (2008-13). In recent times, Nature Morte has notably introduced main worldwide names to India, whose market stays domestically centered, together with Alicja Kwade and Ai Weiwei who’ve each held their first exhibitions within the area on the gallery. Nature Morte has maintained various places throughout Delhi all through its run. Presently it operates an area in Delhi’s Gulmohar Park, which it opened earlier this 12 months, and one in Colaba, Mumbai, launched in 2024.
Nature Morte’s Instagram publish asserting Nagy’s loss of life says that “he lived precisely as he selected: fearlessly, irreverently and wildly free. He had no persistence for conference for its personal sake, and infinite persistence for concepts.” The galleries stay open in step with Nagy’s needs. “Peter was clear that, when the time got here, the gallery shouldn’t shut its doorways in mourning,” the publish says.
