NEW YORK, NY.- Hauser & Wirth announced today that the gallery now represents artist Nicole Eisenman.
Considered one of the most important painters of her generation, Eisenman (b. 1965, Verdun, France) has developed a powerful and timely new figurative language that combines elements both factual and fictive, mainstream and countercultural. Her oeuvre is distinctive in its emphasis upon the allegorical and its deft mingling of autobiographical elements with historical and fictional narratives that draw attention to contemporary sociopolitical conflicts. Since moving to New York City in 1987, she has emerged as a central figure in the resurgence of painting in America, and a singular voice for identity and culture at the margins.
Eisenman’s art has attracted critical admiration for its skillful, subversive appropriation of compositional and stylistic elements of the great painterly traditions, including Old Master and Italian Renaissance art, to interrogate the corruption of contemporary life by politics, technology, and consumerism. In a practice that enfolds the legacies of artists across the art historical canon to the present, from Breugel the Elder, to Philip Guston, to Leon Golub, and Amy Sillman, Eisenman depicts layered and surreal narratives, often based on real characters from her own life. Unable to locate her own experience and point of view in the art historical canon, she takes pleasure in complicating its hierarchies, altering the course of accepted narratives with outré colors, varied styles, and mismatched metaphors. Many of her works are large and mural-like, bustling with figures that somehow manage to materialize in many different painting styles at once.
Marc Payot, Partner and Vice President, remarked: ‘We are honored and delighted to announce our collaboration with Nicole and welcome her to the Hauser & Wirth family. While formally astonishing, her work is particularly powerful because it explores and lays before us all the undercurrents of American society. In this way, her practice resonates with the work of artists central to our program. Hauser & Wirth is devoted to supporting and advancing the efforts of creative pioneers whose talent is placed in the service of sociopolitical dialogue. We are excited about projects ahead with Nicole and look forward to introducing her work to ever-broader audiences worldwide.’
Eisenman’s art has been the subject of major international exhibitions, including a mid-career retrospective, ‘AlUgh-Ories,’ at the New Museum, New York (2016); and the traveling exhibition ‘Dear Nemesis, Nicole Eisenman 1993 – 2013,’ at The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2015), The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2014), and the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis (2014). She was included in the decennial ‘Skulptur Projekte Münster,’ Münster, Germany (2017) and the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany, presented a solo exhibition of her work in 2018. Eisenman’s large-scale outdoor sculptural ensemble ‘Procession,’ (2019) was a highlight of the Whitney Biennial in 2019.
Hauser & Wirth’s representation of Nicole Eisenman is worldwide. She will continue working relationships with her current galleries, Anton Kern in New York City and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects in California.
