Michael Bauer
dal 10/5/2012 al 16/6/2012
Segnalato da
10/5/2012
Michael Bauer
Lisa Cooley (new location), New York
H.S.O.P - 1973. In his paintings, figurative elements appear throughout the work, and just as quickly disappear into chaotic moments of abstraction.
Lisa Cooley is thrilled to announce Michael Bauer's first solo show at the gallery, which will also be his first solo show in New York. His work is well known in Europe, and has been presented in numerous museum exhibitions there. He recently moved from Berlin to New York, and we are very pleased to be presenting this new, energetic group of works.
In Michael Bauer's paintings, figurative elements appear throughout the work, and just as quickly disappear into chaotic moments of abstraction. He speaks about the paintings as being portraits of gangs, families, music bands, collectives, or mobs - a grouping of characters revealed through the occasional eye or profile emerging from shadowy abstraction. Flat, crisp, bright, patterns usually provide the structure from which these organic nebulas originate.
Bauer spent a length of time last year focusing on collage and drawing, processes which have energized this body of work with openness, dynamism, lightness, and mischievous humor. Thick, craggy skeins of pure color replace the tones and tints of earlier works, while open areas of almost raw canvas supplant his previous heavy layers. Concentrated areas of small staccato marks have returned from Bauer's earliest paintings. The omnipresent absurdity in Bauer’s work has likewise been amplified – his figures appear more inane, more incongruous, more vernacular.
Bodily concerns, either actual corporeal depictions or just visceral materials, feature prominently in the artist’s works as well. Lop-sided grins, deflated genitalia, and loosely defined limbs emerge from areas of thick impasto. Smaller works feature dark gashes of lumpen, brown paint, referencing wounds or other fleshy matter. Each painting includes a large foot, or foot-like shape, and is titled using a European shoe size alongside the acronym H.S.O.P – an arbitrary reference to the Hudson River School of painting.
Bauer uses various framing devices such as corner dots or checkered grids to flatten the picture plane. He likens the canvases to playing cards, and sees each one as a character in an unfolding cast; a mad tea party of sorts in which the paintings become posters or trailers for a film.
Michael Bauer was born in 1973 in Erkelenz, Germany and studied at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in Braunschweig, Germany. His work has been the subject of many solo exhibitions throughout Europe, including Anthem, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2009); Peter Kilchmann, Zurich (2011); Norma Magione Gallery, Turin (2011); Villa Merkel in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany (2011); Linn Luhn, Cologne (two-person show with Charlie Hammond, 2010); Marquis Dance Hall, Istanbul (2010); HOTEL, London (2006 and 2009); and Kunstverein, Bonn (2007). A monograph on Bauer’s work, entitled “Borwasser” was published by JRP Ringier Press, (2008) with a catalog essay by Jennifer Higgie, co-editor of Frieze magazine. His work is included in the Saatchi Collection, the Zabludowicz Collection, and the Boros Collection.
For more information, please contact Kelly Woods at kelly@lisa-cooley.com or 212-680-0564.
Image: Michael Bauer, H.S.O.P. - Ambro Gardens - 49, 2012. Oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches (182.9 x 152.4 cm)
Reception: Friday, May 11, 6 - 8 pm
Lisa Cooley
107 Norfolk Street - New York, New York 10002
Hours: Wednesday - Sunday, 10am - 6 pm