Tag: Olaf Breuning
Olaf Breuning
Olaf Breuning
Olaf Breuning @ Metro Pictures
Small Brain Big Stomach:
The wall drawings and wood sculptures that make up the core of Olaf Breuning’s exhibition are based on the content and imagery of his small, childlike pencil drawings that “speak about the simple questions one could have about life.” These drawings are typically produced in concentrated episodes of self-imposed isolation; prior to this exhibition Breuning spent five days alone drawing in his room aboard the Queen Mary II. In their translation to a larger scale, Breuning’s humorous and earnest philosophical aphorisms are presented with a directness that is poignantly faithful to their source drawings. The wall drawings use broad black lines painted directly on the white walls. Their sculptural counterparts are essentially three-dimensional drawings made of wooden blocks painted black such as “Me, Me, Me, You and Me,” which depicts a human head in profile with each egocentric thought illustrated inside: a dozen “me’s” and a single “you.” In “Yesnoyesno,” the viewer is literally confronted with a wall of indecision.
In contrast to the existential, stark, black and white works, the third gallery is devoted to “color studies,” a series of works based on paint and primary colors. Breuning’s play with dripping, splattering and spraying paint is documented in these sculptures and photographs. Experiments that began as diversions in the studio evolved into Breuning’s active engagement with painting and abstract art—issues he never before considered.
Breuning’s one-person exhibitions include the Migros Museum, Zurich; New Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City; Musée de Strasbourg, France; MAGASIN: Centre d’Art Contemporain, Grenoble; Chisenhale Gallery, London; and the Swiss Institute, New York. The work has been included in group shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona; Museum of Modern Art, New York; 2008 Whitney Biennial, New York; Hayward Gallery, London; 2007 1st Athens Biennial; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Ellipse Foundation, Portugal; P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; 2005 Prague Biennale; and Jeu de Paume, Paris.
Olaf Breuning was born in Switzerland and lives and works in New York City.
OLAF BREUNING
Michael Benevento is pleased to present an exhibition of recent photographs and sculptures by Olaf Breuning. This is the artists first solo show in Los Angeles.
The Swiss-born, New York based artist presents a continuation of his recent series, Color Studies, incorporating large photographs and sculptures that focus on the action and resolution of poured paint. With a physical transformation of the gallery space, the figures, objects and actions within the photographs, as well as the sculptures, become the backdrop for a celebration of the unpredictable movement of paint.
With the entrance and first gallery painted entirely in black – the absence of color, Breuning sculptures both blend and contrast with the space. Breuning adds his own background in the form of three all-black sculptures on which red, yellow, green, and blue paint is carefully poured. This combination creates a tension between the material of the sculpture and the natural tendencies of the paint. In addition to the sculptures, there are eight photographs in the room, which present a competition between background and foreground with the same primary colors of paint poured over different figures and objects ranging from the high-art throwback, The Odalisque, to bubbles floating through the air.
The more intimate rear gallery is painted entirely white – regarded as the combination of all visible colors, Breuning continues to evoke tension between the surface and the paint. These three photographs question the relationship between the fluidity of poured paint and rigidity of the grid.
Outside the gallery, set against the back drop of the urban landscape, a light box has been affixed to facade of the building displaying another of Breuning photographs. With the inextricable links to advertising that the light box provides, this plays into Breuning’s familiar fascination with the mass media and popular culture, as well as his desire to speak in a universal language.