the ömen

Gagosian is pleased to announce the ömen: Albert Oehlen paintings and Paul McCarthy sculptures, an exhibition of recent paintings by Albert Oehlen juxtaposed with large-scale sculptural works by Paul McCarthy.

Oehlen uses abstract, figurative, and collaged elements—often applying self-imposed formal constraints—to disrupt the histories and conventions of modern painting while acknowledging the continuing significance of classical art. Approaching his practice as a perceptual challenge, he moves freely between planned and improvised strategies. And while championing self-consciously “bad” painting characterized by crude drawing and jarring coloration, he infuses expressive gesture with Surrealist attitude, disparaging the quest for stable form and meaning.

McCarthy has been known since the 1970s for performances, videos, sculptures, and installations that confront viewers with a perverse Grand Guignol vision populated by an array of grotesque characters. Pairing a focus on sex and violence with a consciously infantilized approach to human bodily function, he probes the darkest corners of the American subconscious, exposing its synthetic manifestations in the mass media and built environment. McCarthy’s clownish, dystopian twist on utopian European Actionism continues to exert a powerful influence.