Rita Ackermann will present a new body of paintings in The Chemical Alphabet, opening at Hauser & Wirth‘s Wooster Street gallery in New York on 9 September. The exhibition sees the Hungarian-born artist introduce letters from a Semitic alphabet into her work, using the shape of each symbol as the starting point for compositions that move between figuration and abstraction.
The paintings build on Ackermann’s distinctive ‘chalkboard’ technique. Beginning with canvases layered with silkscreen prints and green acrylic chalkboard paint, she draws in pastel and chalk before erasing, washing and redrawing the surface. Traces of previous images remain visible as new ones emerge, turning the process of making and unmaking into part of the finished work. The unfamiliar alphabet provides a constant amid these transformations. As Ackermann puts it, the paintings are “anchored by a letter of the alphabet” while ultimately resisting straightforward definition.
Born in Budapest in 1968, Ackermann moved to New York in 1992 and became associated with the city’s experimental art scene. Over more than three decades, she has worked between drawing, painting and printmaking, developing a practice in which images frequently disappear and resurface through processes of disruption and erasure. The Chemical Alphabet runs at Hauser & Wirth New York from 9 September to 17 October 2026.
