Albert Oehlen: Malerei features six paintings made by the artist over thirty years from Fondation Louis Vuitton’s collection: Untitled (1992–2005), Mission Rohrfrei (1996), Rasieren (2005), Rock (2009), Untitled (2017) and Ömega Man 23 (2022). The works – many of which are on view for the first time – are presented as part of the Fondation’s Hors-les-murs, a programme which introduces the collection to international audiences in major cities. The presented selection reveals Oehlen’s long and boundary pushing engagement with the history of abstract painting.

Espace Louis Vuitton

See Stop Run, a survey of Christopher Wool’s works from the past decade organised by the artist with curator Anne Pontégnie, opens in March 2024. The exhibition takes place on the entire 19th floor of an unoccupied space in the heart of the financial district. Wool has chosen an independent venue in order to escape the presumed neutrality of the 'white cube' as an idealised context. The city permeates the presentation through windows that wrap around the full 18,000 square foot installation.

Situating Wool’s work within a specific context, where the art and its environment interact, the exhibition emphasises the artist’s complex image-making process and the interconnectivity between mediums: painting, sculpture, photography and mosaic. This is Wool’s largest exhibition since 2014 and will run 14 March – 31 July 2024. The show is free and open to the public with hours Thursday – Sunday from 12 – 6 pm. Capacity is limited to 75 persons at a time.

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Albert Oehlen’s monumental sculpture Ömega Man, 2023, is now on view to the public in Weidingen, where it emerges from the vast landscape of the Südeifel. Its simplified form and slightly raised steel bars, recessed into their concrete casting, evoke the lightness of a drawing. Here, the persistent importance of the line in Oehlen’s work becomes evident, appearing simultaneously curved and controlled. In this work, the artist uses elements which are both abstract and figurative to critically examine the history and conventions of contemporary art, all the while continuing to acknowledge the importance of classical models. Massive yet fragile in its isolation, Oehlen's Ömega Man appears like a monument from the future. Omega, the last letter of the Greek alphabet, is here written with an umlaut, thereby referring to the artist’s own name. 

Stiftung zur Förderung Zeitgenössischer Kunst in Weidingen

Crosstown Traffic, a new large-scale mosaic by Christopher Wool, is now permanently installed in the lobby of Two Manhattan West across from Moynihan Station in New York City. The mosaic, at 28 by 39 feet, is the artist's first in the medium and his largest artwork to date. Wool’s work is presented alongside a new stainless-steel sculpture by artist Charles Ray, both of which were commissioned by Brookfield Properties.

Under the direction of Oliver Hirschbiegel, actor Ben Becker on screen impersonates the contemporary painter Albert Oehlen and re-creates a painting that Oehlen himself and in parallel is creating step by step in the background, with the actor improvising the process in front of the camera. The finished on-screen painting is an original “Oehlen” on which the artist himself never laid hands. The off screen blueprint painting was destroyed after principal shooting had finished.

Originally planned to be a performative statement the projects developed into a fully fledged feature film of 92 minutes, crossing formal boundaries and questioning the meaning of the creative process and the struggle for authenticity on various levels.

The Painter follows the artist / actor as he is struggling and suffering along this process with us watching in joyful despair and what might happen next until the white canvas has turned into a finished painting.

The outcome is a one-man rollercoaster that appears to be a documentary but in fact is a staged and guided improvisation with the “real” process happening behind the camera. The Painter is a constant flow of the artist’s journey with elements of farce and comedy topped with emotional moments of truth...in front of and behind the camera and leaving it up to us to decide what is real and/or authentic.

Watch the trailer here.

Picture Tree International