Olaf Breuning

  • Olaf Breuning

    January 29 – February 27, 2010
    MELLEMRUMMET, NY CARLSBERGVEJ 68, COPENHAGEN

    During February 2010 we will be showing new sculptures, photographs and a wall painting by Olaf Breuning in our exhibition space Mellemrummet. The exhibition corresponds with a feature about the artist in ArtNews. The sculptures and the wall painting are based on Olaf Breuning’s pencil drawings. Little everyday concerns that in Breuning’s artistic, and often humorous, expression appear paradoxically serious, existentialist, and, in some cases, even melancholic.

     

    The sculptures are constructed in black, painted wood, which keep them in a direct relationship to their source as drawings. With its broad graphic strokes the wall painting exhibits the same reference to its origin. The three photographic works at the exhibition show a relation to the sculptures. A simple grid structure constructed of white painted wood is exposed to paint that is sprayed, dropped and spit - and then, photographed. Taking the emblematic modernist structure of the grid as his point of departure, as well as working with paint, Breuning investigates the boundaries and possibilities between the two media.

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  • Artist Biography
  • OLAF BREUNING Born in Schaffhausen, CH, 1970 Lives and works in New York City, NY, USA Olaf Breuning works across...

    OLAF BREUNING

    Born in Schaffhausen, CH, 1970
    Lives and works in New York City, NY, USA

     

    Olaf Breuning works across a wide range of media, including photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, video, and installation. His art blurs the line between fact and fiction, dissolving the boundaries between art and everyday life. Rather than existing in isolation, Breuning’s work engages directly with the world around it.

     

    At first glance, his use of humor and self-irony may seem lighthearted and accessible. However, a closer look reveals a deeper, more layered complexity.

    Breuning playfully combines elements of high and low culture, placing iconic references from art history alongside symbols of contemporary popular culture. With an eclectic and often absurd approach, he reimagines familiar images from Western visual traditions, using them to comment on modern life and consumerism in the West.

     

    His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the NRW Forum in Düsseldorf, the Public Art Fund at Friedman Plaza in New York, Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, ICA London, PS1 MoMA in New York, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zürich, Haus der Kunst in Munich, and the Tinguely Museum in Basel.

     
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