Carl Andre's Fifth Copper Square (2007) is the result of a life-long investigation into mathematical structures, geometric forms and seriality. Composed of 25 copper plates, this sculpture embodies the characteristic features of Andre’s work, such as the use of ready-made materials, the employment of modular units, and the articulation of three-dimensionality through a consideration of negative as well as positive space. Considered one of the most important figures of Minimal art, Andre has sought to reduce the vocabulary of 20th-century sculpture to basic forms such as the square.

With classical restraint, Robert Mangold translates the most basic of formal elements - shape, line, and colour - into paintings whose apparent simplicity expresses complex ideas. In his shaped panel paintings, of which Four Color Frame Painting (1985) is a distinctive example, he uses subtle modulations of colour and hand-drawn graphite lines to present the viewer with a meditative experience.

Untitled (X-Ray of A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882, After Manet) (2017), a monumental charcoal drawing by Robert Longo, is a remarkable rendering of Édouard Manet’s last major work. Longo decided to tackle Manet’s masterpiece after seeing an X-ray of the work. The X-ray image offered a window into the past, revealing clues about Manet’s working process and, most intriguingly, the adjustments he made to the barmaid’s position in earlier stages of the composition. Both past and present versions are made visible in Longo’s intricately-detailed depiction, showing the viewer what usually remains unseen and revealing an alternate history.

Providing a preview of the artist's forthcoming exhibition at the Musée Courbet, Ornans, Yan Pei-Ming’s Portrait de Gustave Courbet (2018) pays homage to the master of Realism. Ming's monochromatic paintings of epic scale have redefined the traditional parameters of portraiture over the past three decades. The artist believes that portraits have the power to capture and transcend experience and thought. His exhibition at Musée Courbet will coincide with the celebration of the bicentenary of Courbet’s birth in June 2019, before it travels to the Petit Palais and to the Musée d’Orsay.