biography
Albert Oehlen, born 1954 in Krefeld, is a German painter and installation-artist. In Hamburg he studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste where Sigmar Polke was his teacher. Later he begins working with notorious German artists from Cologne such as Martin Kippenberger, Jörg Immendorff and his brother Markus Oehlen. He is considered one of the representatives of the German neo-expressionism and the new savages that gained attention with their subjective and life-affirmative type of painting. Willem de Kooning being his inspiration Oehlen sees his oeuvre as „post-abstract“. Characteristic of Oehlen's working method are groups of works, for each of which he selects a formal problem and plays it out experimentally. From 1988 to 1994, Oehlen devoted himself to "Bionist painting", in which he painted computer-generated images. At the same time, he searches in his "tree pictures" - like Mondrian once did - for the borderline where figuration and abstraction fall into each other. Later Oehlen intensified his painterly research with increasingly bright colors by bringing together in a single picture the most diverse methods he used in earlier groups of works.
His works have been shown in various institutions such as the Museum Ludwig (Cologne), Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), Essl Museum (Vienna), Trevi Flash Art Museum of Contemporary Art (Trevi), The Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the Saatchi Gallery (London).
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
Albert Oehlen, Friedrichs Foundation, Weidingen
2021
Tramonto Spaventoso, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles
2020
Albert Oehlen. Maschinenwesen, Museo d’Arte della Svizzera italiana LAC, Lugano
2019
SPOT ON: Albert Oehlen, Museum Brandhorst, Munich
UNFERTIG, Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen
Albert Oehlen, Serpentine Galleries, London
2018
Trance, Aishti Foundation, Lebanon
Albert Oehlen and Peppi Bottrop: Line Packers, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles
Cows by the Water: Albert Oehlen, Palazzo Grassi, Venice
2017
Ö, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana
2016
Albert Oehlen: Woods near Oehle, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
Albert Oehlen: Recent Works, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
2015
Albert Oehlen: An Old Painting in Spirit, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich
Albert Oehlen: Home and Garden, New Museum, New York
2014
Albert Oehlen: Die 5000 Finger von Dr. Ö, Museum Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden
2013
Albert Oehlen: Malerei, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna
Moderne Farbkonzepte/Conceptos modernos del color, La Casa Encendida, Madrid
2012
Terpentin, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn
2011
Le Carré d’Art, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes
2010
Räume für Kunst. Albert Oehlen – Werke aus der Sammlung, Sammlung Grässlin, St. Georgen
Fingermalerei, Emil Schumacher Museum, Hagen
2009
Réalité abstraite, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris
Albert Oehlen, Museo di Capodimente, Naples
2005
I know whom you showed last summer, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami
Albert Oehlen. Malerei 1980-2004 – Selbstportrait mit 50millionenfacher Lichtgeschwindigkeit, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg
2004
Albert Oehlen, Wiener Secession, Vienna
Albert Oehlen. Malerei 1980-2004 – Selbstportrait mit 50millionenfacher Lichtgeschwindigkeit, Musée Cantonale des Beaux Arts, Lausanne
2002
Albert Oehlen, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg, Strasbourg
2001
Terminale Erfrischung: Computercollagen und Malerei, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanover
2000
Albert Oehlen. Malerei, Kunsthalle Vierseithof, Luckenwalde
Der Ritt der sieben Nutten – das war mein Jahrhundert (with Markus Oehlen), Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach
1998
Albert Oehlen, INIT Kunst-Halle, Berlin
1997
Albert vs. History, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel
Albert Oehlen. Malerei, Kunsthalle Vierseithof, Luckenwalde
1996
Albert Oehlen, IVAM Centre del Carme, Valencia
1995
Albert Oehlen. Abortion of the Cool, Gesellschaft für Gegenwartskunst, Augsburg
Recent Paintings, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Chicago
Oehlen Williams 95, Wexner Center for Arts, Columbus
1994
Albert Oehlen, Villa Arson, Nice
Malerei, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg
1993
Albert Oehlen, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg
Albert Oehlen, Galerie der Stadt Wels, Wels
1990
Realidad Abstracta (with Markus Oehlen), Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo, Santander
1989
Linolschnitte, Forum Stadtpark, Graz
1987
Abräumung – Prokrustische Malerei 1982-84, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich
Der Übel, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz