About
I’ve always been looking for trouble.
—Albert Oehlen.
Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Albert Oehlen. For his first show at the gallery in London since 2016, Oehlen continues to explore the rich possibilities and the future of painting. He riffs on fragments, forms, and entire motifs of his imagination in a manner that echoes both the sampling of a musical composition and the mechanisms of cinematography. These references are the vehicles for vivid painterly invention.
Oehlen’s images are divided, repeated, and distorted to conjure a new pictorial narrative. His original source is reimagined; it is at times decipherable, and at others annihilated. The subject of these paintings is, arguably, unimportant; it is the act of transferring images into a new state that is now significant. The result is sometimes a regular, repeated composition that follows from one section to the next. Yet in other paintings, he chooses much more irregular twists and turns, filled with different possible shapes and endings. There is no barrier between abstraction and figuration, improvisation and control, only the endless potential of the medium.
#AlbertOehlen
Grosvenor Hill, London
20 Grosvenor Hill
London W1K 3QD
+44 20 7495 1500
london@gagosian.com
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 10–6
Artist
Download
Press
Gagosian
press@gagosian.com
Toby Kidd
tkidd@gagosian.com
+44 20 7495 1500
Bolton & Quinn
Sylvia Ross
sylvia@boltonquinn.com
+44 20 7221 5000
Albert Oehlen: Terrifying Sunset
The artist speaks with Mark Godfrey about his new paintings, touching on the works’ relationship to John Graham, the Rothko Chapel, and Leigh Bowery.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2021
The Summer 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Carrie Mae Weems’s The Louvre (2006) on its cover.
In Conversation
Albert Oehlen and Mark Godfrey
Albert Oehlen speaks to Mark Godfrey about a recent group of abstract paintings, “academic” art, reversing habits, and questioning rules.
Albert Oehlen: In the Studio
This film by Albert Oehlen, with music by Tim Berresheim, takes us inside the artist’s studio in Switzerland as he works on a new painting.
In Conversation
Albert Oehlen and Hans Ulrich Obrist
Hans Ulrich Obrist interviews the artist on the occasion of his recent exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries, London.
Albert Oehlen: Maximum Chance Maximum Control
The artist met with art historian Christian Malycha to discuss his newest paintings.