MARK GROTJAHN
Over the course of three decades, Mark Grotjahn (b. 1968) has produced a diverse oeuvre which pushes the boundaries of visual language. Encompassing painting, drawing and sculpture, his multimedia practice foregrounds the tensions and intersections between the abstract and figurative divide. The artist works in distinctive series with a meticulous, almost obsessive drive. Treading the line between geometry and gesture, Grotjahn has developed a unique pictorial lexicon that is at once idiosyncratic and continually evolving. Since his initial ‘Sign Exchange’ project (1993–1998), the artist has gone on to create his renowned series of ‘Butterfly’ paintings (2001–); ‘50 Kitchens’ (2013–2018); ‘Face’ (2003–); his sculptural body of ‘Masks’ (2000–); and more recently the ‘Capri’ (2016–) and 'Backcountry' (2021–) paintings, among others. Comprising angular motifs, a capricious sense of symmetry, reductive sculptural forms, a vibrant palette, and rich impasto paint in his dynamic opus of work, Grotjahn seeks to challenge and upturn the hermetic structures of artistic production.
‘At the centre of Grotjahn’s practice is a belief in formalism – the idea that paintings can be self-contained, and derive from continual experimentation in medium and form. He has spoken widely on his love for the non-objective – distinct from abstract art, which literally means to “take out”, or detract. Instead, Grotjahn relies on painting to build systems and structures which have no external reference point. This is made abundantly clear by his speaking on the subject: […] Grotjahn invokes and withdraws comparisons to real life objects, telling the viewers “I called some ‘butterflies’ but I don’t think they are butterflies; I call my sculptures ‘masks’ but they are not masks.”’
L. Earthy, ‘Mark Grotjahn’s Waking Formalism’, Emergent Magazine, September 2022
Image: Untitled (Backcountry 55.01), 2023, oil on cardboard mounted on linen, 188 x 238.8 cm.; 74 x 94 in., photo: Douglas M. Parker Studio. © Mark Grotjahn
Selected Works
Solo Exhibitions
Group Exhibitions
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
Biography
VITA
1968
Born in Pasadena, USA
1990
BFA, Department of Art Practice, University of Colorado
1995
MFA, Department of Art Practice, University of California, Berkeley
Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
Des Moines Art Center
Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens
François Pinault Collection, Venice
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Rubell Family Collection, Miami
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Tate, London
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
Kitchens
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
2023
Skulls 2016–2023
Karma, New York
Backcountry
Gagosian, Gtaad
2022
Backcountry
Gagosian, London
2021
Horizontals
Gagosian, Hong Kong
2018
New Capri, Capri, Free Capri
Gagosian, New York
50 Kitchens
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Backcountry
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
2016
Sign Exchange 1993–98
Blum & Poe, New York
Sign Exchange 1993–98
Karma, New York
Casa Malaparte, Capri
Pink Cosco
Gagosian, London
Untitled (Captain America)
Gagosian, New York
2015
Painted Sculpture
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
Fifteen Paintings
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
2014
Sculpture
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas
Circus Circus
Kunstverein Freiburg
Butterfly Paintings
Blum & Poe, New York
2013
Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago
2012
Gagosian Gallery, New York
Aspen Art Museum, Aspen
2011
Nine Face
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
Three to Five Faces
Shane Campbell, Chicago
2010
Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo
Portland Art Museum, Portland
Seven Faces
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
2009
Gagosian Gallery, London
2008
Dancing Black Butterflies
Gagosian Gallery, New York
2007
Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland
Blue Paintings Light to Dark One through Ten
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
2006
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
2005
Drawings
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
New Paintings
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
2003
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
2002
El Gran Burrito
Boom/Shane Campbell Gallery, Oak Park
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
2000
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
1998
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Flowers in the Office
Brent Petersen Gallery, Los Angeles
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Instinctive Gestures
Galerie Max Hetzler, London
On Paper
Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris
A Dark Hymn: Highlights from the Hill Collection
Hill Art Foundation, New York
2023
Pictures Girls Make”: Portraitures
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
To Bend the Ear of the Outer World
Gagosian, London
2021
Stiltsville
Half Gallery, Biscayne Bay
2020
A Possible Horizon
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
New Images of Man
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
2019
Continuing Abstraction
Gagosian, Basel
From Day to Day
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
Highlights of the Permanent Collection and Masterworks on Loan
Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland
2018
Close at Hand: Modern and Contemporary Sculpture
Gagosian, San Francisco
Crossraods: Carnegie Museum of Art’s Collection, 1945 to Now
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
More/Less
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
Syphilis
Rental Gallery, East Hampton
The Art of Collaboration
Venus Over Manhattan, New York
Cliché
Almine Rech Gallery, New York
Four Rooms
Blum & Poe, New York
2017
L.A. Invitational
Gagosian, New York
UNPACKING: The Marciano Collection
Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles
Imaginary Ancestors
Almine Rech Gallery, New York
Force and Form
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
2016
Progressive Praxis
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
Takashi Murakami’s Superflat Collection: From Shōhaku and Rosanjin to Anselm Kiefer
Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama
Plane.Site
Gagosian Gallery, San Francisco
Masterworks on Loan
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene
The Campaign for Art: Drawings, Part II
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Implosion 20
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
Olympia
Karma at Galerie Patrick Seguin, Paris
Summer School
FLAG Art Foundation, New York
Phoenix Rising: The Valley Collects
Phoenix Art Museum
A Material Legacy
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham
2015 Surrealism: The Conjured Life.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
First Show / Last Show
190 Bowery, New York
Natural Histories
Gagosian Gallery, Athens
The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and it’s Legacy
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
You’ve got to know the rules to break them
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
The Art of Our Time
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Speed Space
Tif Sigfrids, Los Angeles
Chalet Dallas
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas
SPACE BETWEEN
FLAG Art Foundation, New York
Artists for MOCA: Highlights
Gagosian, Beverly Hills
Geometries On and Off the Grid: Art from the 1950 to the Present
The Warehouse, Dallas
2014 Variations: Conversations in and Around Abstract Painting
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Beneath the Surface
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
New Image Painting
Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago
Cast From Life
Skarstedt, New York
Room by Room: Monographic Presentations From the Faulconer and Rachofsky Collection
The Warehouse, Dallas
Liquor Store
Paradise Garage, Los Angeles
2013
2013 Carnegie International Contemporary Galleries Reinstallation
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Prima Materia
Punta della Dogana, Venice
The Show is Over
Gagosian, London
Busted
High Line Art, New York
Looking at Process
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
Selections from the Permanent Collection
Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles
Pattern: Follow the Rules
Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, Lansing
DSM-V
The Future Moynihan Station, New York
2012
Ancestral Figures
Gagosian, Paris
Contemporary Painting, 1960 to the Present: Selections from the Collection
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
In Living Color
FLAG Art Foundation, New York
Selections from the de la Cruz Collection
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
Now’s the Time: Recent Acquisitions
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Venice Beach Biennial
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
2011
Human Nature: Contemporary Art from the Collection
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Malevich and the American Legacy
Gagosian Gallery, New York
California Dreamin: Myths and Legends of Los Angeles
Galerie Almine Rech, Paris
Selections from the Collection of Buck A. Mickel
Richard Gray Gallery, New York
Selections from the de la Cruz Collection
de la Cruz Collection, Miami
Absence/Presence: Contemporary Abstraction
Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park
Contemporary Painting, 1960 to the Present: Selections from the Collection.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
2010
The Artist’s Museum
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
John Armleder, Tauba Auerbach, Hernan Bas, Matthew Day Jackson, Bernard Frize, Mark Grotjahn, Sergej Jensen, Bharti Kher, Adam McEwen, Olivier Mosset, Takashi Murakami, R.H. Quaytman, Claude Rutault, Lee Ufan, Piotr Uklanski, Martin Wohr
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris
Benches and Binoculars
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
At Home/Not at Home: Works from the Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg
Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
Mark Grotjahn, Jonathan Lasker, Sol LeWitt, Allan McCollum, James Siena, James Welling
Bravin Lee Programs, New York
Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection
New Museum, New York
Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts
American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
2009
Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection
Punta della Dogana, Venice
Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Minimal Means
Initial Access, Wolverhampton
Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Mark Grotjahn and Jonas Wood
T&S’nKreps, New York
Saints and Sinners
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham
Beyond Black, White, and Gray
L&M Arts, New York
Just Like This Train
PHIL, Los Angeles
15th Anniversary Inaugural Exhibition
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
The Chef's Theory
Five Thirty Thr33, Los Angeles
2008
Friends and Family
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
Always There I
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
Eyes Wide Open
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Geo/Metric-Prints and Drawings from the Collection Exhibition
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Kaikai Kiki Artists
Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo
for what you are about to receive
Red October, Gagosian Gallery, Moscow
Oranges and Sardines: Conversations on Abstract Painting
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Pretty Ugly
Maccarone, New York
2007
USA Today
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Hammer Contemporary Collection Part 1
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Painting as Fact – Fact as Fiction
de Pury & Luxembourg, Zurich
L.A Desire (Part 1)
Galerie Dennis Kimmerich, Dusseldorf
Like Color in Pictures
The Aspen Art Museum
Zbigniew Rogalski: “Air”
Galerie Almine Rech, Paris
Warhol and ....
Kantor/Feuer Gallery, Los Angeles
Fit to Print: Printed Media in Recent Collage
Gagosian Gallery, New York
The Complexity of the Simple
L&M Arts, New York
Past, Present, Future Perfect: Selections from the Ovitz Family Collection
H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City
Very Abstract and Hyper Figurative
Thomas Dane Gallery, London
2006
Dark Matter
White Cube, London
Delete/How to Make a Perfect Ghost
Anton Kern Gallery, New York
Figures in the Field: Figurative Sculpture and Abstract Painting from Chicago Collections
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Gone Formalism
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Modern Primitivism
Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago
Paintings in Tongues
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Last Time They Met
Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
The Monty Hall Problem
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
RED EYE: L.A. Artists from the Rubell Family Collection
Rubell Family Collection, Miami
2005
Drawing from the Modern, 1975–2005
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Painted World
P.S.1, Long Island City
Tête à Tête
Greenberg Von Doren Gallery, New York
New Work/New Acquisitions
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Plip, Plip, Plipity
Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles
Think Blue
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
2004
2004–5 Carnegie International
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Now is a Good Time
Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
Colored Pencil
KS Art, New York
I, Assassin
Wallspace, New York
The Thought That Counts
Sister, Los Angeles
2003
Inaugural exhibition
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Conversations
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Pink
Gallery Min Min, Tokyo
2002
The Stray Show
Boom, Chicago
Play it as it Lays
London Institute Gallery
L.A. On My Mind: Recent Acquisitions from MOCA’s Collection
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
2001
Jennifer Bornstein, Mark Grotjahn, Dave Miller, Florian Maier-Aichen
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Sharing Sunsets
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tuscon
Out of Bounds: Working off Paper
Luckman Gallery, The Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex, California State University, Los Angeles
Superman in Bed: Kunst der Gegenwart und Fotografie Sammlung
Schurmann, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund
David Brody, Mark Grotjahn, Wade Guyton, Siobhan Liddell
Gorney Bravin + Lee, New York
2000
00: Drawings 2000
Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York
Works on Paper from Los Angeles
Studio Guenzani, Milan
Young and Dumb
Acme, Los Angeles
1999
After the Gold Rush
Thread Waxing Space, New York
1998
Winter Selections 1998
The Drawing Center, New York
Works on Paper
Derek Eller Gallery, New York
Phenomenology: Michael Byron and Mark Grotjahn
Elias Fine Art Gallery, Boston
Entropie zu Hause
Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen
1997
Brent Petersen, Mark Grotjahn, Paul Sietsema
Gallery 16, San Francisco
Helmut Federle, Gunter Umberg, Mark Grotjahn, Ingo Muller
Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco
1996
Backroads with Doug McConnell
Four Walls, San Francisco
1995
Access
Southern Exposure, San Francisco
Skowehegan Drive-in: collaboration with Dough Corson, Mark Grotjahn, and Mel Chin
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Videos
Publications
Mark Grotjahn: Kitchens
Exhibition Poster
2024
€ 15.00
Always There
Haluk Akakçe, André Butzer, Günther Förg, Mark Grotjahn, Arturo Herrera, Sarah Morris, Frank Nitsche, Albert Oehlen, Yves Oppenheim, Richard Phillips, Michael Raedecker, Anselm Reyle, Kay Rosen, Kelley Walker, Christopher Wool
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin 2008
With a text by Gudrun Inboden
€ 40.00
Selected Press
Èmergent Magazine September 2022
Unframed LACMA August 2018
Unframed LACMA July 2018
Garage Magazine July 2017
Purple Magazine Fall/Winter 2017
Vulture Magazine January 2016
Culture Map June 2014
Cool Hunting February 2012
Artforum February 2012
The New York Times September 2006
