Dan Colen

Home can be a dream for some and a nightmare for others. It is the past we come from and the future we aspire to. But inevitably it’s where we are, the earth we stand, work, and rest on in the present.
—Dan Colen

Gagosian is pleased to announce Lover, Lover, Lover, an exhibition of new paintings by Dan Colen from the Mother and Woodworker series. All the paintings belong to the final group of his Disney-inspired canvases, which he initiated with the Candle series in 2003. Also included are two sculptures by Sy Colen, the artist’s father.

Borrowing its title from a song written by Leonard Cohen on a visit to his ancestral homeland of Israel during the Yom Kippur War, Lover, Lover, Lover employs the aesthetics of Disney animation to reflect on the many “lovers”—god, birthplace, friend, father, mother, spouse, and child—that we have, lose, and move between. Colen, who is also Jewish, relocated briefly with his family to Israel when he was five years old, an experience that shaped his idea of home in all its charged complexity. Lover, Lover, Lover, which was conceived of during another pivotal moment in the artist’s life, explores this perception in concert with ideas of tradition, influence, and the always-fraught American dream.

The Mother paintings, which Colen began in 2009, are based on scenes from the Disney classic Lady and the Tramp (1955) and reflect a concern with the places that shape our lives. They propose various sites as potential manifestations of “home,” exploring a spectrum between freedom and bondage. In this series, Colen incorporates the theme of influence by “quoting” brush marks from a broad range of historical movements including, but not limited to, Photorealism, German Romanticism, and American Spiritualism. The images present moments from a journey toward a hinted-at promised land, conjuring feelings of uncertainty, but also of hope. For Colen, Disney’s creations manufacture an idealized backdrop to our shared desire while operating in the context of power and control; the series explores our collective need for a secure existence—and the reality that many will never attain it.

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