Gladstone Gallery to Represent Estate of Performance Artist Pope.L

Gladstone Gallery has announced it will represent the estate of Pope.L, the influential performance and conceptual artist who passed away in December 2023. The gallery plans to present its inaugural solo exhibition for the artist in New York during 2027. Pope.L's estate will continue to be represented by Modern Art in London and Vielmetter Los Angeles, both of which worked with him before his death. Gladstone partner Gavin Brown described Pope.L as a groundbreaking visionary whose impact has become increasingly evident since his passing. Over four decades, Pope.L created work that challenged categorization while focusing on Black American experiences. His notable performances included consuming the Wall Street Journal and undertaking extended crawls through New York City streets. One prominent series, begun in 1978, featured his Manhattan crawl while wearing a Superman costume with a skateboard attached to his back, completed between 2001 and 2009. In 2015, he presented an installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles featuring a large American flag deteriorated by industrial fans, which the museum acquired in 2023. His work has been featured in major exhibitions including Documenta 14, the São Paulo Biennale, and multiple Whitney Biennials, where he received the Bucksbaum Award in 2017. Following that recognition, he had solo shows at the Whitney Museum and Museum of Modern Art in 2019. An exhibition of his works on paper will open at the Drawing Center in New York this spring. Gladstone senior partner Max Falkenstein noted that Pope.L's boundary-defying work has significantly influenced contemporary art and culture.