ALBERT OEHLEN | Untitled

Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid Private Collection, Spain (acquired from the above in 1996)

Sotheby’s, New York, 10 May 2012, Lot 471 (consigned by the above)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Madrid, Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Albert Oehlen: Obras recientes, April - May 1996 Segovia, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Esteban Vicente, Extranjeros: los otros artistas españoles, May - September 2002, illustrated in colour on the cover and p. 103, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is brighter and more vibrant and the illustration fails to convey the reflective nature of the silver paint. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals some tiny hairline cracks with a few associated losses in places to the extreme edges, most notably along the lower edge. There is a network of stable hairline drying cracks in the dark blue/black paint in the centre of the composition as visible in the catalogue illustration. Further extremely close inspection reveals a few hairline cracks, with a few minute associated losses: a few tiny cracks in the red paint, one in the light blue paint and another in the yellow paint, all in the centre of the composition; and a few short vertical hairline cracks in the pink/beige paint in the lower centre. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Demonstrating a visually complex and enthralling cacophony of colour and movement, Untitled exemplifies Albert Oehlen’s idiosyncratic practice. Masterfully oscillating between gestural abandon and representation, the present work takes on the history of abstraction only to break with its traditions and redefine a completely new painterly language. Overflowing with apparent expressivity, vibrating brushstrokes, and experimental arrangements of form, Untitled is an essay on the process of painting as a subject in its own right. Redolent of Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning in his works of linear movement and sumptuous colour, while simultaneously evoking the layering techniques of contemporaries such as Christopher Wool, the present work sits within a period of radical experimentation when Oehlen constantly pushed and redefined the boundaries of painting via new technological and painterly endeavours. Employing silkscreens, digital printing, collage, spray paint, oils and acrylics as tools of pictorial creation, his varied material process equally reflects a hybridisation of painterly subjects that trigger an amalgam of associations. Rich in its eclecticism of form and compositional elements, Untitled is a confident and exuberant display of Oehlen’s artistic trajectory. When the present work was executed, Oehlen had developed an ambition to engage with the legacy of twentieth-century abstraction, in particular Willem de Kooning. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the dynamic brushstrokes of radiating red and yellow intersected by hues of white and ochre paint in the present work. Bits of de Kooning's Women and elements of Robert Rauschenberg's collages of disparate imagery are suggested; having said this, any art historical allusion is in service of a new and independent gesture in Oehlen's work. By fully embracing elements and styles from the history of painting, Oehlen negates the reductivist conclusions reached by abstract painters of the early-mid Twentieth Century.

In Untitled, there is a significant coalescence of incongruous abstract layers and underlying figurative elements: through drips, smacks, smears and smudges of colour, we suddenly discern parts of hands and legs from what appears to be an inverted figure in the centre and upper part of the composition. Interestingly, rendering hands was a point of friendly competition between Oehlen and his good friend and collaborator Martin Kippenberger. Oehlen recalls that "the hands were a theme that we competed about. I once mentioned to him [Kippenberger] that I had heard that one could see from painted hands whether someone could really paint. We were standing in front of one of my self-portraits where the hands were really bad. He wanted to go one better" (Albert Oehlen cited in: Exh. Cat., Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, Martin Kippenberger The Problem Perspective, 2008, p. 94).

Ever since his first paintings as a teenager in the early 1970s, Oehlen has employed subjects and painting styles that are deliberately aimed at confronting the existing establishment and testing the limits and tolerance of his audience. Similar to Kippenberger, Oehlen is not interested in creating works that are conventionally perceived as ‘good’ or ‘pretty’. Instead, he embarked on a path of experimentation that has produced some of the most radical paintings in recent history. As art historian Ralf Beil has noted: “With his strategies of the complication of painting, Albert Oehlen is working toward the maximum possible openness in his work. Everything is in perpetual movement, and must remain in the balance. Nothing may be permanently fixed. Constantly looking for new paths into and around painting seems to be the central objective of his always virtuoso anti-virtuoso vitality” (Ralf Beil, ‘Red Light District’, in: Exh. Cat., Lausanne, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne (and travelling), Albert Oehlen: Paintings 1980-2004, 2004, p. 37).

Oehlen denoted this shift away from the early figurative output of the 1980s towards an entirely abstract mode as ‘post-non-objective’; a term that neither specifically references abstraction nor figuration, but hints towards the artist’s desire to avoid the traditional art-historical binary of the establishment. When Oehlen went to art school in Hamburg, he studied in the class of Sigmar Polke. Similar to Polke, Oehlen looked to transcend the dichotomy between abstraction/figuration and merge the two into one artistic language. Reflecting on this exceptional quality, critic and curator Hamza Walker has described Oehlen's canvases as "represent[ing] a chorus of contradictory gestures; figuration is set against abstraction, form against anti-form, the rhythm of pattern versus a meandering stroke, and a muddy mix of colours juxtaposed against vibrant pigment straight from the tube... Oehlen's paintings are always autonomous in so far as they have managed to eliminate through contradiction an allegiance to any particular style" (Hamza Walker cited in: Exh. Cat., University of Chicago, The Renaissance Society, Albert Oehlen: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, 1999, n.p.).

Masterfully displayed in Untitled via its gestural bravura and compositional complexity, the works from this period are a full testament to Oehlen’s artistic prowess. Combining abstract and figurative elements in a manner that is both enriching and confounding, the present work pushes for a sensorial engagement that begins with a visual investigation triggered by Oehlen’s unusual painting technique and his expressive mark-making. Deeply engaged with the history of painting while actively renouncing the continuation of tradition, Untitled displays the artist’s exceptional ability to understand, assimilate, and transcend past precedent in order to create works that suggest an entirely novel pictorial idiom.