Canada

September 13 - October 21, 2023

60 Lispenard Street

P: 212 925 4631

New York, NY

10013

canadanewyork.com

Marc Hundley: The Vanity of Human Greatness

 Installation view of Marc Hundley The Vanity of Human Greatness

Canada is pleased to announce The Vanity of Human Greatness, Marc Hundley’s third solo exhibition at the gallery. This exploration of Hundley’s private and public worlds is built across both spaces in the gallery. The main space (equipped with park benches) features the grander points of Hundley’s views on the hubris of human life. A recreation of Roy Lichtenstein cigarette painting, an ad for the novel Strangers on a Train, and a huge image of a statue of Achilles holding a sword all reach the scale and ratios of billboards, six by twelve feet in one case, dwarfing the viewer with the type of confidence usually reserved for selling products. In contrast is an image lifted from the classic children’s book, The Story of Ferdinand, the tale of a pacifist bull who refuses to fight and is happiest enjoying flowers in a pasture and eventually in the hair of voyeuristic ladies in a Madrid bullring. Walls in this courtyard have been painted a dusty gray, implying that we are outside in an urban space, where the public and its vanities are all ours, built and shared, reflected and consumed.

In the project room Hundley has created an interior space. He has titled this low-key meta-show The Greatest Thing, taken from the Led Zeppelin song Friends. Despite the heaviness of the music, the song declares that trading a smile with another person is the greatest thing one can do. The works in here are smaller in scale and have a more soulful approach towards his subject: people. The stridently declarative nature of the public square is gone, and we find Hundley remembering specific relationships, moments, or individuals. These works offer more of the artist's hand, in contrast

with the hard edge, nearly commercial approach of his larger works. The personal nature of these painted pieces gain power through the pairing of imagery with an address or a date, often corresponding to a moment of remembrance.

Hundley isn’t a newshound, social media junkie, or polemicist. He maintains a bemused fondness for the myopic culture that he is both a part of and slightly distanced from. Never one to scold, he gently pokes fun at the folly of human vanity and we, in turn, get to enjoy this artist finding meaning in the power of human connections.

Marc Hundley (b. 1971, Toronto, Canada) is represented by Canada, New York and The Modern Institute, Glasgow. His work has been exhibited at The Jewish Museum, New York; Serpentine Galleries, London; White Columns, New York; Printed Matter, Inc., New York; Ratio 3, San Francisco; The Modern Institute, Glasgow; Canada, New York; Team Gallery, New York; Herald St, London; and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, among others. His work is held in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and has been reviewed in Artforum, Frieze, New York Magazine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Architectural Digest, and Vogue. Marc Hundley: The Voyage Out, co-published with The Modern Institute in Fall 2023, marks a three-decade inventory of Hundley’s eclectic artistic output, from furniture, clothes and gifts to painting, text-based works and more.

The Narcissus of Pompeii, 2023
Acrylic on canvas, artist's frame
74 ¼ × 146 ½ × 2 in

Marc Hundley in his Brooklyn, NY Studio, Photo by Marquale Ashley

Marc Hundley's Brooklyn, NY Studio, Photo by Marquale Ashley

They thought he would fight fiercely, 2023
Acrylic on canvas, artist's frame
74 ¼ × 146 ½ × 2 in

 Installation view of Marc Hundley The Vanity of Human Greatness

Nature, 2023
Acrylic on canvas, artist's frame
74 ¼ × 146 ½ × 2 in

Marc Hundley's Brooklyn, NY Studio, Photo by Marquale Ashley

Cigarette (for James), 2023
Acrylic on canvas, artist's frame
62 ½ × 122 ½ × 2 in

 Installation view of Marc Hundley The Vanity of Human Greatness

A Battle, 2023
Acrylic on canvas, artist's frame
62 ½ × 122 ½ × 2 in

 Installation view of Marc Hundley The Vanity of Human Greatness

Making Your Own Days (for Ian & Jaime), 2023
Acrylic and ink on card, artist's frame
17 × 13 × 1 ½ in (framed)

Friends, 2023
Acrylic on canvas, artist's frame
50 × 38 × 2 ¼ in

Frank O'Hara (for Janet), 2023
Xerox on paper, artist's frame
23 × 17 × 2 in (framed)

That's Us, 2023
Acrylic on card, artist's frame
49 × 37 × 1 ½ in (framed)

Girls in Trees (for Rebecca), 2023
Acrylic on canvas, artist's frame
22 ¾ × 16 ¾ × 2 in (framed)

 Installation view of Marc Hundley The Vanity of Human Greatness

La Couronne d’Or, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
49 ¼ × 61 ¼ × 2 in (framed)

And Right Now (for Janet), 2023
Acrylic on card, artist's frame
18 ¾ × 26 ¾ × 2 in (framed)

Pansies (for Bill), 2023
Acrylic on canvas
69 ½ × 81 ½ × 2 in (framed)

Superman’s Super Self (my own hand), 2023
Acrylic on canvas, artist's frame
74 ¼ × 50 ¼ × 2 in

Marc Hundley: The Voyage Out
Co-published by Canada & The Modern Institute 

The first comprehensive monograph on New York–based artist and designer Marc Hundley (born 1971), The Voyage Out chronicles the development of his work since 1993, the year in which Hundley first moved to the city to model for Vogue. Hundley works across disciplines, with his interests extending from print culture and fine art painting to carpentry and design. In line with this multifaceted approach, the book disregards categorical hierarchies, presenting posters, gifts, and ephemera in the same manner as paintings, furniture and clothing. The publication features an interview conducted by filmmaker Matt Wolf with the artist’s bother Ian, tracing an alternate history of Hundley’s life and career, and selected texts by Hundley himself, which provide further insight into his wide-ranging practice.

$50, Purchase here.