Lynda Benglis

Chuck Close

Robert Duran

Ralph Humphrey

Barry Le Va

David Novros

Brice Marden

Paul Mogensen

Deborah Remington

Dorothea Rockburne

Alan Saret

Richard Van Buren

Joe Zucker

David Nolan Gallery is delighted to present 13 Artists: A Tribute to Klaus Kertess’ Bykert Gallery 1966-75. The exhibition includes work by Lynda Benglis, Chuck Close, Robert Duran, Ralph Humphrey, Barry Le Va, Brice Marden, Paul Mogensen, David Novros, Deborah Remington, Dorothea Rockburne, Alan Saret, Richard Van Buren and Joe Zucker. David Nolan Gallery currently occupies the same building as the indelible Bykert Gallery once did, where the spirit of an artist-centric, exhibition-forward space continues to guide the program.

Klaus Kertess was born in New York City in 1940 and grew up in Westchester some 20 miles from the city with his parents and siblings. As a child to a German father, Kertess travelled widely in Europe during his youth and was exposed to 15th century Florentine painting as well as Bach’s music played in a festival in Bavaria, which encouraged his creative pursuits, though Kertess never wanted to be an artist himself. Kertess landed at Yale where he marveled at the university’s famed art museum and was connected to his first summer job in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s painting department. Through what he considered “process of elimination”, Kertess ruled out careers in academia and museums, feeling both to be too bureaucratic and “dry” in favor of creating a space of his own, beholden to no dogma or rigor. Prior to securing a physical space, Kertess spent a majority of his time perusing gallery and museum shows in the city, making lists of collectors who owned works and approaching each artwork with a discerning eye that would cultivate one of the most unique and significant programs in New York City of the time. He noticed a void, a lack of exhibition spaces for younger artists, and sought to show work he gravitated towards on aesthetic grounds that was totally new and confronted his own opinions about the nature of art itself. With the financial backing of Jeff Byers whom he met at Yale, Kertess opened Bykert Gallery in 1966, so named after them both.

Kertess admired Richard Bellamy, owner of Green Gallery that gave early visibility to canonical artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Mark di Suvero and Donald Judd, and where he was introduced to the work of Ralph Humphrey. His initial curiosity was sparked by Humphrey’s “frame paintings”, painted fields of color devoid of iconography or subject, outlined by a crudely painted frame, which mock the commodified art object. Upon Green Gallery’s closure, Kertess reached out to Humphrey and offered him a show, which would inaugurate the opening of Bykert Gallery. As he discovered more artists such as Brice Marden, Dorothea Rockburne and Deborah Remington in the earliest years of operation, adding them to an official roster, Kertess remained endlessly curious, conducting innumerable studio visits with eager young artists. He described his curatorial process as a combination of “testing, playing” and a strong desire to see the work around him. He favored intense, experimental work that would provoke visceral reaction, whether it was commercially desirable or not, and maintained a distinct loyalty and commitment to his artists.