1991 2008

Albert Oehlen: 1991 2008 is the catalogue of a two-part show that set Oehlen’s abstract canvases from 1991 against new paintings made in 2008 over Spanish advertising posters.

Galerie Max Hetzler staged the exhibition in 2008 at its Temporary space in the OsramHöfe in Berlin-Wedding, with all the 1991 paintings on loan from private collections. The gallery’s press text says the new works put oil paint over posters collaged onto white primed canvas, with the paint concentrated toward the center and areas of canvas left bare. Holzwarth Publications of Berlin produced the book with the gallery. It is a hardcover of 88 pages in German and English, with 44 color illustrations and an interview with Oehlen by Max Dax. Holzwarth’s text says the installation placed the two groups back to back, so that one line of sight ran to the new work and the opposite one back to 1991, a pairing the book follows.

Oehlen was born in Krefeld in 1954. The same press text says he lived and worked in Spain and Switzerland and had shown regularly at Galerie Max Hetzler since 1981. It lists museum exhibitions at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Kunsthaus Graz (both 2006), MOCA Miami (2005), the Secession in Vienna (2004), the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hanover (2001) and Kunsthalle Basel (1997).