Simon Lee Gallery is pleased to present An Uncanny Likeness, a group exhibition organized by Franklin Melendez and Romain Dauriac in the newly re-launched New York space.
The show revisits the legacy of portrait painting bringing together a diverse group of artists whose practice revolves around the re-drawing of the figure. Eschewing the ‘faithful reproduction’ as convention, these artists pursue emotive distortion and stylistic idiosyncrasies that foreground painting’s relationship to the body. The resulting tableaux are thick with symbolic meaning, conjuring altered states and arcane visions that are as indebted to the virtuosic flourishes of Mannerist painters as the elastic possibilities of present day visualizing techniques.
In particular, the show teases out a historical link between a group of artists in the late 1980s and early 1990s – including Martin Wong and Katharina Wulff – whose concern with self-imagining and self-rendering takes on political import. This sheds light on a younger generation tackling similar questions of art historical lineage, queer pictorial space, viewer power relations and corporeal abstraction through a visual dialogue that is both playful and poignant.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Julien Ceccaldi was born in 1987 in Montreal, Canada and lives and works in New York, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Jenny’s, Los Angeles, CA (2016) The Swiss Institute, New York, NY (2014), New Theater, Berlin, Germany (2014), MJ Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland (2014), and Paradise Garage, Venice, CA (2013). He has recently participated in group exhibitions at Greene Naftali Gallery, New York; Truth and Consequences, Geneva, Switzerland; and Supportico Lopez, Berlin, Germany, among others. Ceccaldi’s comics have been featured in print and online publications, and he has self-published two comic books, Comics Collection 2010-2013, and Less Than Dust.
George Condo was born in 1957 and lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Confrontation, Museum Berggruen, Berlin, Germany (2016); Headspace, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2014); George Condo’s Jesters, The Metropolitan Opera House, New York (2013); Mental States, New Museum, New York (2011). This exhibition travelled to Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Hayward Gallery, London, UK; and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany (2012). His works feature prominently in important public and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica, CA; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway; Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens, Greece; and Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France. In the spring of 2017, the first major survey of his drawings will be held at The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.
Nicole Eisenman was born in 1965 in Verdun, France and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Eisenman is the winner of the 2015 MacArthur Foundation Grant, the 2013 Carnegie Prize and has been included in the Whitney Biennial (1995, 2012). Recent solo exhibitions include The New Museum, New York, NY and Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2016); The Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (2014), The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA (2015) The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA (2015), The Jewish Museum, New York, NY (2015); and Studio Voltaire, London, UK (2012). Her work is featured in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland, among others.
Justin John Greene was born in Los Angeles, CA in 1984 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Recent solo exhibitions include Secret Slob, Andrew Rafacz, Chicago, IL (2016), Moonlighting, Loudhailer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2016), A Dusk That Never Settles (2014) and You Oughta Be In Pictures (2011) both at Actual Size, Los Angeles, CA. His work has been included in group exhibitions at König Galerie, Berlin, Germany (2016) The Torrance Art Museum, CA (2016), 356 Mission, Los Angeles (2015) and The Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI (2015).
Van Hanos was born in Edison, New Jersey in 1979 and lives and works in New York, NY. He has had solo exhibitions at Rowhouse Project, Baltimore, MD (2016), Tanya Leighton, Berlin, Germany (2014) and Retrospective Gallery, Hudson, New York (2014). His work has been featured in group exhibitions at The Artist’s Institute, New York (2015), Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York (2015), White Columns New York, (2015), and Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York (2014).
Sanya Kantarovsky was born in Moscow, Russia in 1982 and lives and works in New York, NY. He has had solo exhibitions at Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, UK (2016), Tanya Leighton, Berlin, Germany (2016), Studio Voltaire, London, UK (2015), LA>
Paulina Olowska was born in 1976 in Gdansk, Poland and lives and works in Rabka, Poland. She was recently awarded The Aachen Art Prize (2014). Olowska’s work has been shown extensively internationally and has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions and projects, including The Mother An Unsavoury Play in Two Acts and an Epilogue, Tate Modern, London, UK (2015); Needle / Nadle, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany (2015); The Spell of Warsaw, The Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland (2014); Au Bonheur des Dames, The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2013); Pavilionesque, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2013). Her work is in major private and public collections including Tate, London, UK; Sammlung Boros, Berlin, Germany; Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland; Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA and Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.
Jim Shaw was born in 1952, Midland, MI and lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Recent solo exhibitions include The End is Here, The New Museum, New York, NY (2016); Entertaining Doubts, MASS MoCA, West Adams, MA (2015); Jim Shaw, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2015); Jim Shaw: The Hidden World, Centre Dürrenmatt, Neuchâtel, CH (2014) and Chalet Society, Paris, France (2013); Jim Shaw’s Dream Drawings, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA (2012); The Rinse Cycle, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2012) and Left Behind, CAPC, Musee de’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, France (2010). In 2013 his work was included in The Encyclopedic Palace at The 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy. In 2017 he will have a solo display of new works at The Marciano Foundation, Los Angeles, CA.
Martin Wong was born in 1946 and died in 1999. He has had recent solo exhibitions at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, New York (2015), Wexner Center for the Arts Columbus, OH (2016) and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, Germany (2010). His work is in the public collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA and more.
Katharina Wulff was born in 1968, Berlin, Germany and lives and works in Marrakech, Morocco. Recent solo exhibitions include Greene Naftali, New York, NY (2016), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (2012); Fürstenberg Zeitgenössisch, Donaueschingen, Germany (2014); and The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2014). Her work is included in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; and Museum Abteiburg, Mo nchengladbach, Germany.
Jakub Julian Ziolkowski was born in 1980 in Zamosc, Poland and lives and works in Kraków and Zamosc, Poland. He studied painting and drawing at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Poland. His works have been shown in solo exhibitions at Café Nhà Sàn, Hanoi, Vietnam (2016); Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, Poland (2014); Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw, Poland (2012); Hydra Workshop, Hydra, Greece (2012); Parasol Unit, London, UK (2011); Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland (2010); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland (2009).
