Pace Gallery Berlin | September 11 – November 2, 2025
Opening as part of Berlin Art Week at Pace Gallery’s new Die Tankstelle space, Adam Pendleton’s spray light layer emerge exhibition redefines the language of abstraction. Featuring selected canvas and paper works from his Black Dada and Untitled (Days) series, the show explores the material and conceptual power of painting.
Pendleton’s practice feels like a mode of thinking that continually redefines the boundaries of painting. His surfaces, built with layers of black ink, spray paint, watercolor, and text, function as experimental grounds. By stacking these layers, he plays with the visibility of both text and image, amplifying meaning or erasing it entirely. The title spray light layer emerge encapsulates this process: paint is sprayed, light touches, and layers emerge.
Pendleton begins with works on paper, which are photographed and then transferred to canvas via silkscreen. This blurs the lines between painting, photography, and drawing. The resulting works become traces of thought—both a physical and intellectual process. Fragmented texts, abstract geometric forms, and rhythmic marks embody his assertion that “painting is a conceptual force.”
The works in the exhibition use the infinite shades of black as a language. On some surfaces, paint disperses like mist; in others, it gleams as if competing with light. Amid this movement, the viewer’s role is as much to listen as to look: Pendleton’s paintings resonate like silent yet echoing music.
spray light layer emerge offers an experience that convinces viewers that painting is more than an image. Each brushstroke is like a sentence; each layer an echo of a thought. Pendleton’s works reopen the conversation around contemporary art’s abstract legacy while reminding us that painting remains a form of resistance, remembrance, and expression.
Apartment No: 26 Note
In Adam Pendleton’s hands, black is not just a color—it’s a space of thought. Each layer is a silent conversation. This Berlin exhibition presents painting at its most invisible yet intense: a space where meaning emerges layer by layer, where light merges with paint.
