Albert Oehlen

ALBERT OEHLEN (Germany, 1954).
“Jean Marie Straub,” 1988.
Mixed media on paper.
Bears a label from the Juana de Aizpuru Gallery.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 25 x 19 cm; 45.5 x 39.5 cm (frame).
Graphite strokes, black and white brushstrokes, corrections, and inscriptions overlap on the surface of the paper, transforming the creative process into a portrait of Jean Marie Straub, one of the most influential European filmmakers of the 20th century. Together with his collaborator and partner Danièle Huillet, he developed a body of cinematic work characterized by its extraordinary formal rigor and a firm commitment to literature, philosophy, and political thought. Their cinema, demanding and free from any commercial concessions, exerted a notable influence on numerous artists and intellectuals of their time, as this work attests. The work was created in 1988, a decisive moment in Albert Oehlen’s career, when the artist was beginning to establish himself as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary German painting.

Initially associated with the Neue Wilde, a movement that spearheaded the return of expressive painting in Germany during the 1980s, Oehlen soon distanced himself from any labels. His work is characterized by constant experimentation that combines figuration and abstraction, drawing, painting, collage, writing, and even references from popular culture, continually challenging the traditional boundaries of the medium of painting. His work has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at institutions such as the New Museum in New York (2015), the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2016), the Palazzo Grassi in Venice (2018), and the Hamburger Kunsthalle (2024), in addition to participating in the 2013 Venice Biennale. His paintings are part of the collections of some of the world’s most important museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate in London, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.