Galerie Lelong & Co.

About the Gallery
Since 1991, Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, has championed a diverse roster of contemporary artists from throughout the world. Led by Mary Sabbatino, Vice President and Partner, the gallery has pioneered the community both in presenting a balanced roster of male and female artists, and artists from the Global South. The gallery’s programming is noted for its political acuity and museum-quality exhibitions that include contemporary sculpture and installations, as well as its work with artists to help develop large-scale public art commissions beyond the gallery’s walls. In tandem with the gallery’s artists who present works that examine the human condition and collective consciousness, Galerie Lelong & Co. demonstrates its commitment to social justice and good citizenship through charitable initiatives and collaborations.

Founded in Paris in 1981 by Daniel Lelong, Jacques Dupin, and Jean Frémon, the gallery in New York opened in 1985 and moved to its present ground-floor location in Chelsea in 2001. Galerie Lelong & Co. is a member of the Art Dealers’ Association of America, the most esteemed organization of art galleries in the United States.

About the presentation
Galerie Lelong & Co. presents Ficre Ghebreyesus: Help is on the way!, the public debut of the artist’s works created in anticipation of the 2004 United States presidential election. The motifs that emerge in this body of work—the countdown to election day, mouths open in frenetic chatter, and references to children’s laughter—convey a tense yet hopeful vision of democracy that remains poignant two decades later, in the midst of another election cycle. Ficre Ghebreyesus (1962–2012) left his native Eritrea during its War of Independence as a teenage refugee to Sudan, Italy, and Germany, before he settled in the United States. Operating fluidly between abstraction and figuration, Ghebreyesus populated his works with intricate, highly personal experiences as a citizen of the world.