David Zwirner is pleased to present Reading the Surface, a group exhibition on view at The Upper Room, a second floor viewing room at the gallery’s 24 Grafton Street location in London. The Upper Room supplements the annual program at David Zwirner with intimate, curated presentations that juxtapose works by established and lesser established artists from the gallery’s roster and beyond.

Opening to coincide with the London gallery’s first solo exhibition of works by Donald Judd, Reading the Surface takes a minimalist approach to the notion of surface. With artists including Nina Beier, Ryan Gander, Bob Law, George Henry Longly, John McCracken, and Maaike Schoorel, the show considers different attitudes to the surfaces of artworks, focusing on the dialectic between viewing at a glance and deeper reflection. With art typically encountered on short visits to museums and galleries, viewing experiences are often dictated by temporal and spatial concerns. Exploring themes of absence, materiality, and anxiety, the works in the show can be seen to negate, and even ignore, the ideas beneath the surface.

Reading the Surface is curated by Associate Director Rodolphe von Hofmannsthal. It coincides with Donald Judd (June 21 – August 3, 2013).