Gagosian opens Isn’t Love the Strangest Thing, Stanley Whitney's first solo exhibition in Asia, at its Hong Kong gallery on Thursday, showcasing new and recent artworks by the American artist renowned for his vibrant abstract paintings.
The exhibition, which features paintings across a range of scales from 12 to 72 inches square, takes its title from a 1936 jazz standard recorded by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, featuring vocals by Ivie Anderson.
The allusion to jazz resonates throughout the exhibition and Whitney's creative journey, with the artist frequently referencing musicians such as Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman.
Since the 1990s, Whitney has structured his compositions around loose grids of rectangular blocks arranged in three or four rows separated by horizontal bands, driven by the idea that one color can "call" to another.
Rendered with a gestural hand, each individual field or border functions both independently and in relation to the whole, activating a dynamic range of formal connections and harmonies that parallel jazz’s distinctive polyphony.
These arrangements also reveal the influence of Black Southern quiltmaking, as well as Abstract Expressionist artists such as Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko, who were similarly interested in the banded linear patterning of Greek vase painting from the preclassical Geometric and Archaic eras (c. 900–500 BCE).
The title of the Roma series (2017–), entries from which are included in Isn’t Love the Strangest Thing, also alludes to Mediterranean antiquity, signaling a transformative five years that Whitney spent in Rome beginning in 1992.
During this time, the artist was inspired by the irregular stonework of ancient buildings and the weathered surfaces of murals to soften his compositional grids and expand his use of painterly gesture.
Also on view are works from the ongoing Stay Song series (2017–), which debuted in Athens for documenta 14 and was named after a verse by Canadian poet and painter Norma Cole commissioned for Whitney's 2001 exhibition catalog.
Here again, Whitney explores the lyrical possibilities of his chosen format and palette, combining an improvisational approach with a consistent structure—blending strategies familiar from the innovators of European modernism with formal echoes of the ancient world.
Finally, works such as Summer of Familiar Pleasures (2024–26), Poetry Afternoon (2026), and Sometime Between Midnight and Dawn (2026) reflect the sensory origins of Whitney’s project and his immersive reflection on the passage of time.
The exhibition runs from September 10 through November 7 at Gagosian, located on 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong.
