Contemporary Art: Albert Oehlen @ Gagosian, New York

(Drivebycuriosity) - I am a connoisseur of contemporary art. Albert Oehlen belongs to my favorites.  The German artist, born 1954, was a student of Sigmar Polke and friend of the late Martin Kippenberger and is known for the radical shifts in his work and style. W Magazin calls Oehlen the "change artist" (wmagazine). And the curators of Los Angeles` Broad Museum write: "Albert Oehlen exaggerates and distorts the traditions of abstract painting, breaking all the rules in order to discover how those customs work. The resulting paintings are so thoroughly and cleverly steeped in an aesthetic of excess and indulgence that the artist persuasively communicates a visual picture of breakdown"  (thebroad).

In 2015 I reported about an Oehler show @ New York`s New Museum ( here ). New York`s Gagosian has now an exhibition with selected works by the artist, called "Elevator Paintings: Trees" (West 21st through April 15 gagosian ). "Through expressionist brushwork, Surrealist methodology, computer-generated lines, and self-conscious amateurism, he multiplies the potential of visual codes through processes of persistent accretion", comments their press release (oehlen )

I present her my favorites of the show, as usual a very subjective selection. Let the pics speak for themselves.

On top of this paragraph you can see "Untitled (Baum 60), 2015, Oil on dibond, 98 7/16 × 98 7/16 inches (250 × 250 cm). The following paintings are also called "Untitled/Baum", just with different numbers.

According to the press release "using a new technical approach, the Elevator Paintings are all-over polychromatic oil paintings in which Oehlen stages oppositions between clear contours and amorphous blurs. Over areas of clean, solid color, he applies voracious sprays, drips, and strokes in muddy greens and grays, deep reds and flesh tones, further complicating his conflation of erasure and enhancement".

 "On bright white Dibond, black lines track the hand’s erratic ambulations, while red gradations are contained within geometric figures of a more digital register. The black, mobile lines take on a representative function, as if measuring their own relation to the red, still planes".

Enjoy!