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Albert Oehlen

Rodchenko I

Information about the artwork

  • Year1982
  • MaterialAcrylic on canvas
  • Year of acquisition2017
  • Inventory numberUAB 1063
  • On viewCurrently not exhibited

More about the artwork

Albert Oehlen’s early works systematically connect
conflicting traditions from the history of painting. He
is interested in the key moments of criticism. Here, for
instance, he revisits Alexander Rodchenko, a Russian
Constructivist, who had proposed in the 1920s that art
should, above all, serve society—a clear rejection of
the self-referentiality of painting.
Oehlen’s paintings are based on a photograph of
Rodchenko’s wife, Varvara Stepanova, with students
from Moscow’s Vkhutemas art school, and a picture
of Rodchenko’s spatial constructions. But these artists
and artworks of the avant-garde do not seem heroic
here. The wooden sculptures look like dusty objects
found in an attic, and the individuals in the upper
painting come across as somewhat clumsy. Oehlen
is not so much attempting to distance himself from
these earlier artists’ ideas but rather tracing, in a
nostalgic manner, the revolutionary spirit of the time:
By the 1980s, artistic utopias had receded into the
distance. Finally, they would end up in the bourgeois
medium of painting themselves.

Further artworks

Artwork: "Untitled (Roses)" from Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly Untitled (Roses), 2008 yes Upper floor
Artwork: "Lepanto XI" from Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly Lepanto XI, 2001 yes Upper floor
Artwork: "Untitled" from Jacqueline Humphries
Jacqueline Humphries Untitled, 2008 yes Ground floor
Artwork: "Warhol Black Marilyn" from Sturtevant
Sturtevant Warhol Black Marilyn, 2004 yes Ground floor
Artwork: "Party Room" from Pope.L
Pope.L Party Room, 2001 yes Ground floor