Menu

News / Albert Oehlen

Events

Albert Oehlen on the set of van G (2023). Photo: Simon Hemmer

Screening

Albert Oehlen
van G

Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 6pm
Curzon Mayfair, London
www.curzon.com

Join Gagosian for a special screening of van G (2023), a film made collaboratively by Albert Oehlen and director Oliver Hirschbiegel, in conjunction with the artist’s exhibition of new paintings at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London. A romance, the film depicts the relationship between Vincent van Gogh (played by Ben Becker) and his models, whom he struggled to recruit and pay. Van G additionally provides insight into the artist’s techniques, clearing up some common misunderstandings about them. The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Oehlen. The event is free to attend.

Register

Albert Oehlen on the set of van G (2023). Photo: Simon Hemmer

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2023 © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Stefan Rohner

Lecture

ArtCenter Spring 2024 Graduate Seminar Lecture Series
Albert Oehlen and Laura Owens on Vincent van Gogh

Tuesday, March 12, 2024, 7:15pm
Los Angeles Times Media Center, Pasadena, California
www.artcentermfa.net

Albert Oehlen and fellow artist Laura Owens will be guest speakers at the Los Angeles Times Media Center as part of the ArtCenter College of Design Graduate Art MFA Spring 2024 Lecture Series. The pair will discuss Vincent van Gogh, whom they both address in their respective bodies of work. Oehlen will specifically talk about his recent film van G (2023), which recounts van Gogh’s relationship with his models, whom he struggled to recruit and pay. The event is free and open to the public.

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2023 © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Stefan Rohner

Ben Becker on the set of Geel (2023). Photo: Albert Oehlen

Screening and Talk

MOCA Artist Film Series
Albert Oehlen

Thursday, December 14, 2023, 6–8pm
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
www.moca.org

Join the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, for a screening of Albert Oehlen’s Geel (2023) as part of MOCA’s Artist Film series, a dynamic platform for the presentation of artist films. A romance, Geel depicts Vincent van Gogh’s (played by Ben Becker) relationship with his models, whom he struggled to recruit and pay. The film additionally provides insight into the artist’s techniques, clearing up some common misunderstandings about them. The screening will be followed by a conversation between Oehlen and MOCA senior curator Bennett Simpson. The event is free to attend.

Ben Becker on the set of Geel (2023). Photo: Albert Oehlen

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2022 © Albert Oehlen

Auction

The Art of Wishes 2023

Monday, October 9, 2023
Raffles Hotel, London
www.artofwishes.org.uk

Founded by philanthropist and Make‐A‐Wish patron Batia Ofer, the Art of Wishes is a charitable initiative that brings the international art community together to raise funds for Make-A-Wish UK, a nonprofit organization that grants the wishes of children with critical illnesses. The sixth annual Art of Wishes benefit auction and gala will take place at Raffles Hotel in London. The auction will be hosted on Artsy, with a preview of the artworks open to the public from October 4 through 7 at Christie’s London. Twelve works by leading international artists such as Edmund de Waal, Jadé Fadojutimi, Albert Oehlen, Stanley Whitney, and others will be included.

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2022 © Albert Oehlen

Takashi Murakami, Gargantua on Your Palm, 2018 © 2018 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved

Fundraiser

Artist Plate Project 2022
Coalition for the Homeless

Launching May 22, 2023, 10am edt

Limited-edition bone china plates produced by Prospect and featuring artwork by more than forty artists—including Virgil Abloh, Derrick Adams, Harold Ancart, Georg Baselitz, Amoako Boafo, Mark Grotjahn, Takashi Murakami, Albert Oehlen, Ed Ruscha, Anna Weyant, and Jonas Wood—will be sold through Artware Editions to raise funds for the Coalition’s lifesaving programs. The funds raised by the sale of the plates will provide food, crisis services, housing, and other critical aid to thousands of people experiencing homelessness and instability. The purchase of one plate can feed one hundred homeless and hungry New Yorkers.

Takashi Murakami, Gargantua on Your Palm, 2018 © 2018 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved

Still from The Painter (2022), directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel

Screening and Talk

The Painter
A film by Oliver Hirschbiegel, written by Ben Becker and Albert Oehlen

Monday, June 20, 2022, 6:30pm
Curzon Mayfair, London
www.curzon.com

 Join Gagosian and Serpentine for a screening of The Painter (2022), a docufiction film made collaboratively by Albert Oehlen, director Oliver Hirschbiegel, and writer/actor Ben Becker, featuring narration by Charlotte Rampling. The film is an artistic tour de force, taking viewers into the real and imagined mind of the artist as he struggles with the creation of a single painting. In the film, Becker (playing the role of Oehlen) improvisationally re-creates an artwork that Oehlen himself is painting in real time behind the camera.

After the screening, Oehlen and Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator and artistic director of Serpentine, will discuss the film, followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience. Doors open at 6pm; screening begins at 6:30pm. To attend the free event, register at eventbrite.com.

Still from The Painter (2022), directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel

See all Events for Albert Oehlen

Announcements

Albert Oehlen in his studio, Ispaster, Spain, 2020. Artwork © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Esther Freund

Playlist

Albert Oehlen
Tramonto Spaventoso

Albert Oehlen has created a playlist of fourteen tracks on Spotify ranging in genres from free jazz to techno. Featuring musicians such as Steamboat Switzerland and Colin Stetson, the playlist shares the title of his upcoming exhibition at Gagosian, Beverly Hills, in which he interprets and transforms John Graham’s painting Tramonto Spaventoso (Terrifying Sunset) (1940–49). The artist discovered the work by the Russian-born American modernist painter in the 1990s and has been fascinated with it ever since.

Listen Now

Albert Oehlen in his studio, Ispaster, Spain, 2020. Artwork © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Esther Freund

Still from “Albert Oehlen: Endless Possibilities of Interpretation”

Video

Albert Oehlen
Endless Possibilities of Interpretation

In this video, Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, London, and Joseph Constable, assistant curator, discuss the inspirations behind the works in Albert Oehlen’s 2019–20 exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries, and the ensemble Steamboat Switzerland performs a newly configured soundtrack inside the exhibition.

Still from “Albert Oehlen: Endless Possibilities of Interpretation”

Albert Oehlen: The History

Video

Albert Oehlen: The History
Art Basel Hong Kong 2019 Online Viewing Room

We can now see that this painting marks the exact point where all of Oehlen’s influences—de Kooning, Rauschenberg, Richter, Polke—come to a head, and how it acts as a departure point for what he will do over the next thirty years.
—Sam Orlofsky

Learn more about Albert Oehlen and the history behind this monumental 1988 painting with Gagosian directors Andrew Fabricant and Sam Orlofsky.

Albert Oehlen: The Market

Video

Albert Oehlen: The Market
Art Basel Hong Kong 2019 Online Viewing Room

We have long followed Oehlen’s work and watched it develop over time. It’s clear that we are on the verge of an upward trajectory. It’s just a perfect moment for him and this painting.
—Andrew Fabricant

Gagosian directors Andrew Fabricant and Sam Orlofsky discuss the recent sales trends for Albert Oehlen and where they see his market heading.

Still from “Albert Oehlen and Glenn Brown”

Video

Albert Oehlen and Glenn Brown

In this video, Albert Oehlen and Glenn Brown have a conversation on the occasion of Oehlen’s 2016 exhibition at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London. Filmed inside the gallery, the pair discuss Oehlen’s thought process behind the new aluminum-panel paintings—rendered in various combinations of red, black, blue, and white—in which Oehlen uses treelike forms as vehicles for a methodical deflation of content.

Still from “Albert Oehlen and Glenn Brown”

Still from “School of the Art Institute of Chicago 2015 Commencement Address: Albert Oehlen”

Video

Albert Oehlen
School of the Art Institute of Chicago 2015 Commencement Address

Albert Oehlen delivered the commencement address at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015. In his humorous and insightful speech, he considers the importance of freedom to artistic practice. As artists, Oehlen reminds graduates, “we are technicians of freedom, and it is our duty to make use of this privilege.”

Still from “School of the Art Institute of Chicago 2015 Commencement Address: Albert Oehlen”

Museum Exhibitions

Installation view, Albert Oehlen, Friedrichs Foundation, Weidingen, Germany, August 27–December 17, 2023. Artwork © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Günzel | Rademacher

Closed

Albert Oehlen

August 27–December 17, 2023
Friedrichs Foundation, Weidingen, Germany
friedrichsfoundation.org

Albert Oehlen has produced an expansive installation that playfully integrates twelve paintings into the Friedrichs Foundation’s exhibition hall. He creates overtly fragmented images in which traces, stimuli, and afterimages of reality flash across the canvases, causing a sense of disorientation. This approach has afforded Oehlen an exceptional degree of freedom, as with each new image, he updates and renews the possibilities and impossibilities of painting.

Installation view, Albert Oehlen, Friedrichs Foundation, Weidingen, Germany, August 27–December 17, 2023. Artwork © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Günzel | Rademacher

Helen Frankenthaler, Overture, 1992 © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Closed

The Inner Island

April 28–November 4, 2023
Fondation Carmignac, Porquerolles, France
www.fondationcarmignac.com

This exhibition, which features more than eighty works by fifty artists, presents visitors with new, unknown worlds floating outside familiar geographies and temporalities. The artists included break away from reality, bringing to life fictional, mental, and abstract islands. Work by Harold Ancart, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Helen Frankenthaler, Simon Hantaï, Roy Lichtenstein, Albert Oehlen, and Christopher Wool is included.

Helen Frankenthaler, Overture, 1992 © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 1990 © Albert Oehlen

Closed

Beautiful, Vivid, Self-contained

April 21–July 21, 2023
Hill Art Foundation, New York
hillartfoundation.org

Beautiful, Vivid, Self-contained is an exhibition curated by David Salle that brings together paintings and sculptures by artists working across different eras, mediums, and geographies to explore the notion of affinity between works of art. Alongside a painting by Salle from 1988, work by Francis Bacon, Willem de Kooning, Mark Grotjahn, Brice Marden, Albert Oehlen, Pablo Picasso, Cy Twombly, and Christopher Wool is included.

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 1990 © Albert Oehlen

Installation view, Raum Für Phantasievolle Aktionen: Neupräsentation Der Sammlung, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, May 8, 2022–January 31, 2023. Artwork © Albert Oehlen

Closed

Raum Für Phantasievolle Aktionen
Neupräsentation Der Sammlung

May 8, 2022–January 31, 2023
Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany
www.kunstmuseum-bonn.de

This exhibition, whose title translates to Space for Imaginative Actions, celebrates the museum’s thirtieth anniversary on the Museum Mile and brings together monographic and thematic works from more than forty artists. Work by Jadé Fadojutimi, Albert Oehlen, and Gerhard Richter is included.

Installation view, Raum Für Phantasievolle Aktionen: Neupräsentation Der Sammlung, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, May 8, 2022–January 31, 2023. Artwork © Albert Oehlen

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 1997/2005 © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Lothar Schnepf

Closed

Albert Oehlen
“Grandi quadri miei con piccoli quadri di altri”

September 5, 2021–February 20, 2022
Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland
masilugano.ch

In this exhibition, Albert Oehlen: Big Paintings by Me with Small Paintings by Others”, select works from Oehlen’s personal art collection are on view alongside some of his most significant paintings. In staging this large-scale exhibition, Oehlen aims to make relationships perceptible between his artworks and those by artists whose practices he has long admired. Work by Richard Artschwager, Willem de Kooning, Duane Hanson, Mike Kelley, and Franz West, among others, is included.

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 1997/2005 © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Lothar Schnepf

Installation view, The 80s: Art of the Eighties, Albertina Modern, Vienna, October 17, 2021–February 13, 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Jiří Georg Dokoupil, © Hubert Schmalix, © Albert Oehlen. Photo: © Ana Paula Franco/Albertina, Wien 2021

Closed

The 80s
Art of the Eighties

October 17, 2021–February 13, 2022
Albertina Modern, Vienna
www.albertina.at

Some consider the 1980s to be the most important decade for the art of our age. For the first time, art was no longer determined by a dominant style, such as abstraction or Pop, but rather embodied an unprecedented stylistic pluralism that was a hallmark of postmodernism. This exhibition, curated by Albertina Modern director Angela Stief, examines the variety of artistic approaches and strategies that defined the era. Work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Albert Oehlen, Richard Prince, Andy Warhol, and Franz West is included.

Installation view, The 80s: Art of the Eighties, Albertina Modern, Vienna, October 17, 2021–February 13, 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Jiří Georg Dokoupil, © Hubert Schmalix, © Albert Oehlen. Photo: © Ana Paula Franco/Albertina, Wien 2021

Georg Baselitz, B. für Larry (Remix), 2006 © Georg Baselitz 2021

Closed

Wonderland

May 7–September 19, 2021
Albertina Modern, Vienna
www.albertina.at

Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this exhibition features more than a hundred contemporary artworks from the Albertina’s collection organized into seven different “chapters” conceived as independent yet loosely connected “worlds.”  Work by Georg Baselitz, Katharina Grosse, Anselm Kiefer, Roy Lichtenstein, Albert Oehlen, Andy Warhol, and Franz West is included.

Georg Baselitz, B. für Larry (Remix), 2006 © Georg Baselitz 2021

Glenn Brown, Lemon Sunshine, 2001 © Glenn Brown

Closed

00s. Collection Cranford
Les années 2000

October 24, 2020–May 30, 2021
Mo.Co. Contemporary, Montpellier, France
www.moco.art

This exhibition of work from the Cranford Collection, established by Muriel and Freddy Salem in 1999, aims to define the identity of the 2000s by creating a dialogue between one hundred artworks by a multigenerational array of artists who contributed to shaping the beginning of the millennium. Work by Glenn Brown, Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley, Albert Oehlen, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Franz West, and Christopher Wool is included.

Glenn Brown, Lemon Sunshine, 2001 © Glenn Brown

Albert Oehlen, Rock, 2009 © Albert Oehlen

Closed

Crossing Views

September 23, 2020–January 3, 2021
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr

Presented in conjunction with a retrospective on Cindy Sherman, Crossing Views examines a selection of works from the collection of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, chosen in collaboration with Cindy Sherman. Echoing the artist’s work, the exhibition unfolds across two floors and is centered on the theme of the portrait and its interpretation through different approaches and media, including painting, photography, sculpture, video, and installation. Work by Damien Hirst, Albert Oehlen, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol is included.

Albert Oehlen, Rock, 2009 © Albert Oehlen

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 1989, Museum of Modern Art, New York © Albert Oehlen 

Closed

Artist’s Choice
Amy Sillman—The Shape of Shape

October 21, 2019–April 12, 2020
Museum of Modern Art, New York
www.moma.org

In The Shape of Shape, Amy Sillman—an artist who has helped redefine contemporary painting, pushing the medium into drawing, installations, video, and zines—has created a revelatory Artist’s Choice installation drawn from the museum’s collection. The exhibition features works, many rarely seen, spanning vastly different time periods, places, and mediums. Work by Jay DeFeo, Helen Frankenthaler, Howard Hodgkin, Henry Moore, Albert Oehlen, and Christopher Wool is included.

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 1989, Museum of Modern Art, New York © Albert Oehlen 

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2015 © Albert Oehlen/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019

Closed

Carroll Dunham / Albert Oehlen
Bäume / Trees

November 30, 2019–March 1, 2020
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany
www.kunsthalle-duesseldorf.de

Within their individual self-im­posed pa­ram­e­ters Car­roll Dunham and Albert Oehlen con­tin­u­al­ly test the pos­si­bil­i­ties of paint­ing, ex­per­i­ment­ing with tech­niques, sur­faces, and struc­tures in an in­de­pen­dent manner. Nowhere is this more ev­i­dent than in regard to the sub­ject of trees, which both artists have re­peat­ed­ly in­clud­ed in their work and in­ter­pret­ed in their own ways. This exhibition brings to­geth­er large-scale paint­ings alongside draw­ings, etch­ings, and mono­types by both painters in which they ex­plore the arboreal themes in their rad­i­cal­ly in­de­pen­dent pic­to­ri­al lan­guages.

Albert Oehlen, Untitled, 2015 © Albert Oehlen/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019

Albert Oehlen, Sohn von Hundescheisse, 1999 © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Archive Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin | Paris

Closed

Albert Oehlen

October 2, 2019–February 2, 2020
Serpentine Galleries, London
www.serpentinegalleries.org

At the center of this exhibition is an installation that forms part of Albert Oehlen’s process of interpreting the Rothko Chapel in Houston. Oehlen has made four new paintings—of the same scale and size as the four horizontal canvases by Mark Rothko found in the chapel—specifically for the exhibition. A selection of paintings by the artist from the past two decades and a newly configured soundtrack by Steamboat Switzerland are also included.

Albert Oehlen, Sohn von Hundescheisse, 1999 © Albert Oehlen. Photo: Archive Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin | Paris

See all Museum Exhibitions for Albert Oehlen