Arp. Heads or Tails

This Fall, Hauser & Wirth presents ‘Arp. Heads or Tails,’ the first New York exhibition in nearly fifteen years dedicated to the seminal German-French modernist. Organized by Curatorial Senior Director Alexis Lowry, in collaboration with the Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth, this presentation takes Arp’s late Threshold sculptures as a point of departure, situating this pivotal but underexamined body of work within the trajectory of Arp’s long career of aesthetic and philosophical inquiry.

The exhibition’s design takes inspiration from Arp’s studio in Locarno, Switzerland, and traces a line from his early cut-outs and reliefs to his mastery of form as a tool for reconfiguring and transforming our perception of space.

‘Heads or Tails’ presents key examples from the Threshold series alongside a selection of rarely exhibited works on paper and late sculptures. The juxtaposition reveals how elements of Arp’s visual language migrated across materials and forms, accruing new meaning through a process of perpetual reinvention. The exhibition coincides with the release of ‘Arp: Paper’ from Hauser & Wirth Publishers, a survey of nearly two hundred works—many never before exhibited or published—that situates paper at the very heart of the artist’s practice.