Faces & Figures: Group Exhibition

 

Miquel Barceló (b. 1957, Spain)

Barceló is a contemporary Spanish artist known for his experimental approach to painting and sculpture. Whether utilizing bleach, organic matter, or even live insects, Barceló’s Neo-Expressionist oeuvre explores decomposition, light, and the natural landscape. Barceló credits the influence of Lucio Fontana, Barceló’s work is both abstract and cerebral, as evidenced by his broad range of paintings, ceramics, and installations. The artist’s works are held in the collections of the Guggenheim (Bilbao), The Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Reina Sofia National Museum (Madrid), among others.

 

Mike Bidlo (b. 1953, Illinois)

Bidlo is an appropriation artist that produces very accurate replications of works by artists of the 20th century such as Matisse, Man Ray, Picasso, Pollock and Warhol. In the 1980s he started with performance-like pieces like the re-enactment of Pollock’s urinating into Peggy Guggenheim’s fireplace that earned him sudden recognition. Bidlo appropriates subjects and images from popular culture and art history into his own art and does so with a lot of appreciation and devotion. His works explore the concepts of originality and creativity. His work has been exhibited at the Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), New Museum (New York), PS 1/MoMA, (New York); Sezon Museum (Tokyo) Saatchi Collection (London) and Fondation Cartier (Paris).

 

Francesco Clemente (b. 1952, Italy)

Clemente is a contemporary Italian artist known for his dreamlike paintings based on esoteric themes of sexuality and spirituality. Working across oil painting, installation, and watercolor, Clemente’s works are characterized by their formal experimentation with symbols, portraiture, and the human figure. His experience in traditional papermaking and miniature painting has had a lasting impact on his work. Categorized as a Neo-Expressionist during the 1980s, Clemente has largely shunned the restrictive label of movements and styles. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Art Institute (Chicago), the Kunstmuseum Basel, and the Tate Gallery (London), among others.

 

George Condo (b. 1957, New Hampshire)

Condo is seen as one of the most influential American artists, his works both surprise and sometimes horrify:  In the paintings Condo mixes the technique of European Old Master Paintings with reference to American culture and achieves grotesquely distorted but classically executed motifs. Condo calls his approach the „Artificial Realism“. Condo’s works were shown at The Phillips Collection (Washington), Museum Berggruen (Berlin), The Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and Astrup Fearnley Museet (Oslo) amongst others.

 

Bruce High Quality Foundation (founded 2001, New York)

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, a group of anonymous artists, uses performances and pranks to critique the art world. It creates installations, videos, paintings, sculptures, performances, and institutions that reveal our collective creative agency within the seemingly monolithic forces of art and social history. The Foundation has exhibited in The Whitney Biennial, the Venice Bienniale, and the Lyon Bienniale, as well as with The Lever House, Acquavella Gallery, and Vito Schnabel (New York), Bruno Bischofberger and Thomas Ammann Fine Art (Zurich), and Almine Rech (Brussels).

 

Karen Kilimnik (b. 1955, Pennsylvania)

Kilimnik is a contemporary American artist subverting the traditions of painting and installation to investigate contemporary notions of celebrity and obsession. In her works, Kilimnik presents a pastiche of aesthetic modes drawn from pop culture, fairy tales, and mystery novels as seen through the eyes of a both a critic and an awe-inspired fan. Her art can be found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art, among others.

 

Pablo Picasso (b. 1881, Spain)

Picasso was a pioneering figure in 20th-century art. He co-founded the Cubist movement and is renowned for his contributions to Surrealism, Symbolism, and Expressionism. Picasso's works, ranging from paintings and sculptures to ceramics and prints, revolutionized artistic conventions and challenged traditional perceptions of form and space. Today, his works are part of the most exclusive collections worldwide, including prominent institutions like the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Tate Modern in London, Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Kunstmuseum Basel, among many others.

 

David Salle (b. 1952, Oklahoma)

Salle studied with the conceptual artist John Baldessari at the California Institute of Arts in the early 1970s and initially worked with the medium of photography. Later he turned to the medium of video. In the mid-1970s Salle created a series of large-format paintings, usually composed as diptychs or triptychs. The motifs of these conceptually conceived paintings originate from everyday life, art history, pornography and dance theatre. In doing so, Salle combines templates of different themes in different styles to form an overall picture. His works have been shown at various institutions such as The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), The Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), The Castello di Rivoli (Turin) and The Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao).

 

Andy Warhol (b. 1928, Pennsylvania)

Warhol was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement. Like his contemporaries Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg, Warhol responded to mass-media culture of the 1960s. His silkscreens of cultural and consumer icons—including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Campbell’s Soup Cans, and Brillo Boxes—would make him one of the most famous artists of his generation. Moving to New York to pursue a career in commercial illustration, the young artist worked for magazine such as Vogue and Glamour. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Tate Gallery (London), Beyeler Foundation (Basel) among many others.

 

John Waters (b. 1946, Maryland)

Waters is an American artist best known for his satirical and raunchy movies. Also a visual artist, Waters’ photography, sculpture, and installations pieces humorously recontextualize art and popular culture. He gained a cult following in the 1970s with his transgressive films Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974), as well as the box office hit Hairspray (1988). In the early 1990s Waters began creating photography based work and installations. His works are in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the New Museum (New York), among others.