Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce Figure in the Landscape, a group exhibition organized by Ronald Jones.

Figure in the Landscape, the first of two such exhibitions at Lehmann Maupin, is a meditation on traditional subjects in the history of art, which have remained steadfast avenues for expression in contemporary art. Since Philip Guston's dramatic turn toward representation, the figure and the landscape have been consistently seen in relation to abstract art. It was 1966 when Guston declared: "American abstract art is a lie, a sham, a cover-up for a poverty of the spirit, a mask to mask the fear of revealing oneself. . . . It is laughable this lie. Anything but this." And so it is appropriate that the exhibition reaches back to Guston in order to begin tracing his influence and the impression he has left on artists as diverse as Anna Gaskell, David Salle, Carroll Dunham, Matthew Ritchie, and Monique Prieto who are represented in this exhibition. These artists have inherited strains of Guston's passion and sensibility within their own highly eccentric embrace of picturing the figure in the landscape.