Lars Bohman Gallery presents Donald Baechler's new show Paintings and Works on Paper. The exhibition, his seventh at the gallery since the debut show in 1989, consists of a series of new paintings.
Donald Baechler's art is full of contrasts and contradictions. His paintings excude a directness and an almost childlike naivety, at the same time as the well built-up backgrounds of collages and layers upon layers speak of a conscious and methodical process of working. He does not hesitate to, in an honest and liberating way, undermine the fine art and highbrow culture status of his own works. With scribbles and found objects, with pieces of fabrics and old laces the paintings grow and take shape, and simple and everyday subjects such as flowers, trees, balls and boys are painted with quick and direct brushstrokes and receive icon status as they are again and again being repeated and modified from work to work. With humor and also a certain amount of melancholy Baechler implements in his work the dream of the child's curiosity and undestroyed capacity of creation.
Donald Baechler was represented for the first time in 1981 when Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York showed his works together with those of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Since then he has often been referred to as the second generation of pop artist after Andy Warhol. However, Baechler's art also carry inspiration and influences from Kurt Schwitter and Robert Rauschenberg. The new series of works connect with earlier paintings, but the continuously modifying process has resulted in a new and liberated touch in the works. Among the motifs can be seen tulips and roses, boys, a skull, smiley faces and several heads and objects that together create a painterly totality.
Donald Beachler was born in Hartford, New England in 1956. He attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Cooper Union in New York. After completing his studies at the Staatliche Hochshule für bildende Kunste in Frankfurt, he moved back to New York where he still lives and works. For the big audience Baechler had his breakthrough in 1989 in connection with the Whitney Museum Biennale in New York. Baechler is widely represented around the world at, among others, Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum in New York, and the Centre Georges Pompidou and Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris.
Donald Baechler's art is full of contrasts and contradictions. His paintings excude a directness and an almost childlike naivety, at the same time as the well built-up backgrounds of collages and layers upon layers speak of a conscious and methodical process of working. He does not hesitate to, in an honest and liberating way, undermine the fine art and highbrow culture status of his own works. With scribbles and found objects, with pieces of fabrics and old laces the paintings grow and take shape, and simple and everyday subjects such as flowers, trees, balls and boys are painted with quick and direct brushstrokes and receive icon status as they are again and again being repeated and modified from work to work. With humor and also a certain amount of melancholy Baechler implements in his work the dream of the child's curiosity and undestroyed capacity of creation.
Donald Baechler was represented for the first time in 1981 when Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York showed his works together with those of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Since then he has often been referred to as the second generation of pop artist after Andy Warhol. However, Baechler's art also carry inspiration and influences from Kurt Schwitter and Robert Rauschenberg. The new series of works connect with earlier paintings, but the continuously modifying process has resulted in a new and liberated touch in the works. Among the motifs can be seen tulips and roses, boys, a skull, smiley faces and several heads and objects that together create a painterly totality.
Donald Beachler was born in Hartford, New England in 1956. He attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Cooper Union in New York. After completing his studies at the Staatliche Hochshule für bildende Kunste in Frankfurt, he moved back to New York where he still lives and works. For the big audience Baechler had his breakthrough in 1989 in connection with the Whitney Museum Biennale in New York. Baechler is widely represented around the world at, among others, Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum in New York, and the Centre Georges Pompidou and Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris.