Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by Bob Dylan.
Dylan's drawings and paintings are marked by the same constant drive for renewal that characterizes his legendary music. He often draws and paints while on tour, and his motifs bear corresponding impressions of different environments and people. A keen observer, Dylan is inspired by everyday phenomena in such a way that they appear fresh, new, and mysterious.
The Asia Series, a visual reflection on his travels in Japan, China, Vietnam, and Korea, comprises people, street scenes, architecture, and landscapes, which can be clearly identified by title and specific cultural details, such as Mae Ling, Cockfight, The Bridge, and Hunan Province. Conversely, there are more cryptic paintings of personalities and situations, such Big Brother and Opium, or LeBelle Cascade, which looks like a riff on Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe but which is, in fact, based on a scenographic tourist photo-opportunity in a Tokyo amusement arcade.
The most celebrated singer-songwriter of our time, Dylan has been making visual art since the 1960s, but his work had not been publicly exhibited until 2007, when an exhibition of The Drawn Blank Series was held in Chemnitz, Germany, followed by The Brazil Series at the Statens Museum, Copenhagen, 2008. The Asia Series will be his first exhibition in New York.
