Suellen Rocca: A Journey Through Final Conceptualized Paintings, Drawings, and Immersive Installations

This exhibition showcases the final exhibition conceptualized by artist Suellen Rocca before her passing, posthumously realized with great respect for her work. It features new paintings and drawings alongside works from the past decade, presented in an installation that includes a bed and a screen, quoting Rocca's artistic vocabulary. The presentation blurs the lines between exhibition space and image space, inviting viewers to feel as if they can physically enter her visual landscapes.

The installation in the Graphic Cabinet is the last exhibition Suellen Rocca conceived during her lifetime, posthumously realized with great respect for her oeuvre. It presents new paintings and drawings alongside works from the past decade within an installation that includes a simple bed and a screen, directly referencing Rocca's artistic vocabulary. This combination of real objects and their pictorial representations dissolves the boundaries between the exhibition space and the depicted images, encouraging the perception of physically entering one of Rocca's visual landscapes. Rocca began her artistic career in the 1960s as a member of the Chicago Hairy Who group, associated with the Chicago Imagists. Their style, in contrast to Minimalism and Pop Art, was a shrill-figurative aesthetic influenced by Art Brut and Surrealism. Rocca developed her own distinct visual language, characterized by text and repetitive images drawn from diverse influences like Egyptian hieroglyphs, Surrealism, indigenous art, illustration, and comics, often organized within an invisible grid. Her work spans themes of happiness and challenges, reflecting personal life changes. While her earlier work focused on romantic feelings and domestic life, her later phase turned inward, exploring the unconscious and incorporating dream imagery. The exhibition highlights this significant shift in her visual language, mood, and color palette by presenting her most recent paintings alongside those from the past few years. Rocca also worked on an artist's book featuring additional drawings and sketches, which the Secession is publishing as a leporello, according to her design.

Information and tickets for exhibitions can be found via the provided link. The Secession's opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 10 AM to 6 PM. Specific ticketing details are not provided on this page beyond a general link to book tickets. Visitors can access the exhibition during general opening hours.