Produced on the occasion of the exhibition R. H. Quaytman: An Evening, Chapter 32 at Secession, Vienna, 17 November, 2017–28 January, 2018.

“R. H. Quaytman approaches painting as if it were poetry: when reading a poem, one notices particular words, and how each is not just that one word, but other words as well. Quaytman’s paintings, organized into chapters structured in the form of a book, have a grammar, a syntax, and a vocabulary. While the work is bounded by a rigid structure on a material level—appearing only on beveled plywood panels in ten predetermined sizes derived from the golden ratio—open-ended content creates permutations that result in an archive without end. Quaytman’s practice engages three distinct stylistic modes: photo-based silkscreens, optical patterns such as moiré and scintillating grids, and hand-painted oil works. Each chapter is developed in relation to a specific exhibition opportunity, and consequently, each work is iconographically bound to its initial site of presentation.”—Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition R.H. Quaytman: An Evening, Chapter 32 at Secession, Vienna, 17 November, 2017–28 January, 2018. This text is published as an advance copy from the artist’s book R.H. Quaytman. An Evening, Chapter 32.

Spine resembles a catalogue raisonné of R.H. Quaytman’s work produced since 2001, the year the artist began organizing paintings in what are called “Chapters.” Conceived and written by Quaytman, this more than 400-page volume presents a full decade’s output, from “The Sun, Chapter 1” to “Spine, Chapter 20,” the latest series which revisits motifs elaborated in the preceding nineteen chapters. A text articulating the artist’s systematic pictorial practice, executed on Golden Section wood panels, is printed on the book’s unfolding dust jacket.

Chapter 24 illustrates 61 paintings from the exhibition of the same name at the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, Germany, 3 June–4 November, 2012. This latest chapter employs a variety of images directly related to Museum Abteiberg and Mönchengladbach. Many of the paintings are made from the museum’s image archive, and photographs taken by the artist of works in the permanent collection. These images are presented alongside several small portraits of their custodian, chief curator Hannelore Kersting.

The boxed set of 61 cards depicts each painting accompanied by corresponding notes written by the artist about each image. Additionally, the box includes an essay on Chapter 24 by Mark Godfrey, a facsimile of Yve-Alain Bois’ early essay The Tree and the Square, plus the original 1977 version L’arbre et le carré, and a new German translation. The box format is a direct reference to the famous catalogues published by the Museum in Mönchengladbach under the direction of Johannes Cladders.

Produced on the occasion of R.H. Quaytman: The Sun Does Not Move, Chapter 35, Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, a kind of conceptual retrospective, where the artist has re-read earlier Chapters of the constantly developed project, and returned to its origins closely related to Lodz and the works by Katarzyna Kobro and Wladyslaw Strzeminski. Apart from precisely selected works from earlier chapters, the exhibition has presented new paintings in which R.H. Quaytman continues her dialogue with the work of Polish artists and explores other aspects of her personal relationship with the Lodz museum.

Established in 1994 in honour of the Cologne art collector Wolfgang Hahn, the Wolfgang Hahn Prize has since been awarded annually to an exceptional, internationally known artist who is nonetheless not yet well known in Germany. In 2015 the prize was awarded for the first time to two artists, R.H. Quaytman and Michael Krebber. This publication honours the prizewinners, both of whom approach the medium of painting from a decidedly conceptual standpoint. With a foreword by Mayen Beckmann, an introduction by Yilmaz Dziewior, a laudation by Daniel Birnbaum, and an afterword by Hanspeter Sauter.