Hello walls, (Hello, hello.)
How'd things go for you today?
Don't you miss her,
Since she up and walked away?
And I'll bet you dread to spend another lonely night with me,
But lonely walls, I'll keep you company.
–Hello Walls, Willie Nelson, 1962

Gladstone Gallery is pleased to announce Hello Walls, a group exhibition of artworks executed directly on the walls of both New York gallery locations. Works made in situ are part of a tradition rich in associations, and Hello Walls traces how that tradition has developed since the conceptual improvisations of the 1960s. The exhibition features works by Ricci Albenda, Mel Bochner, Angela Bulloch, Daniel Buren, Neil Campbell, Michael Craig-Martin, Jeff Elrod, Douglas Gordon, Arturo Herrera, Karl Holmqvist, Sol LeWitt, Wangechi Mutu, Raymond Pettibon, Ugo Rondinone, Kara Walker, and Lawrence Weiner.

Hello Walls invites participating artists to engage a single two-dimensional wall plane, and the range of works on display evidences the breadth across the tradition of creating art directly on the wall. From text-based works by artists such as Lawrence Weiner and Mel Bochner, to image-based pieces by Michael Craig-Martin, Raymond Pettibon and Kara Walker, to the geometric abstractions of artists such as Neil Campbell, Angela Bulloch and Arturo Herrera, a wall’s surface proves fertile ground for a range of responses. For some in this exhibition, wall works constitute the central focus of their practice, while for others it is one facet. In the delineated schema of an artist like Sol LeWitt, wall drawings follow a carefully circumscribed lexicon, whereas approaches by Jeff Elrod and Wangechi Mutu allow for spontaneity and unplanned gestures in their process.

Addressing the wall as a physical and metaphysical site rather than simply a surface for display, the artworks in this exhibition activate space as a material, speaking to the legacy of minimalism and conceptualism, while continuing the tradition of experimental propositions within the parameters of exhibition space. Hello Walls takes on a historic and often marginalized approach to art-making, while the multigenerational span of participating artists demonstrates an active and transforming tradition.