ALBERT OEHLEN

December 19 - January 20, 2001

Albert Oehlen was born in 1954 in Krefeld, Germany, and studied at the Hochschule für Kunst in Hamburg. He lives and works in Spain.

Albert Oehlen’s work extends from drawing, painting and graphic work, to collage, photomontage and sculpture. He started his first works on canvas in 1979 at the age of 25. «The paintings of this ex-conceptualist, linked during the seventies with the radical scene in his country, reveal an attitude that is free, paradoxical and experimental, recalling the spirit of the old avant-garde…Oehlen combines his customary tangled, defocused, multidirectional gesturalism with the – in principle, cold and distancedlanguage of computer screens» (Juan Manuel Bonet, 1996). What is characterizing the painterly development of this versatile artist is the progression from the figurative to abstract, while his recent work has ended up re-incorporating the motif.

In the context of this contradictory work, with paintings that range from «abstract» to «figurative», is emphasized the absurdity of the distinction between these two terms, which express, rather than two contradictory concepts, two overlapping ones, mutually depended on each other.

«His art is all about a focus that does not aim for the subliminal or the concealed, but at the same time mirrors what is there, depending on how you look at it» (Rudolf Schmitz, 2000). In a way Oelhen’s work could be seen as a reinterpretation of Expressionism.