Albert Oehlen: Paintings 1988 - 2008 April 8, 2008

Since the start of his career in the late 1970?s, the work of Albert Oehlen has been notoriously and deliberately difficult to classify. Like all great artists, Oehlen is the product of his generation. Specifically, his work resonates the experiences of an artist who came to age in a neo-expressionist dominated Germany ? influenced by the likes of J?rg Immendorff, George Baselitz and Sigmar Polke, punk music, Surrealism, and Gestalt theory, and reflective of a brief era of participation in the politics of post war Germany, whose communist artistic community fostered a spirit of collaboration that remains an important component of Oehlen?s career today. However, two things are decidedly clear: first, despite engaging in multiple mediums throughout the years, painting has remained Oehlen?s most important body of work, and second, Oehlen?s work is intensely preoccupied with issues raised by Modernism?s ideology including a primary concern with the processes involved in the making of a painting.

Official Website: http://www.berggruen.com/