BERLIN.- Galerie Max Hetzler is presenting the exhibition Drawings with works by Carroll Dunham and Michael Williams, curated by Cornelius Tittel, at Bleibtreustraße 45.

30 years apart and both hailed as leading painters of their generations, Carroll Dunham and Michael Williams have been visiting each other’s studios and collecting each other’s drawings for years. Born out of their friendship and an ongoing dialogue in drawing — a medium at the core of both artists’ practices — Carroll Dunham | Michael Williams: Drawings is the first exhibition to present their work together. Curated by Cornelius Tittel, in close collaboration with the artists, the show brings together more than 50 drawings from the late eighties until today. Dunham has chosen examples from both an early phase he now calls “abstraction with a hard-on”, and more recent figurative drawings of “Bathers” and “Wrestlers”, while Williams has juxtaposed these with his technically complex “Puzzle” drawings, as well as a large group of absurdly comical, figurative drawings he often turns into large format inkjet paintings. By highlighting their shared inspirations — from Psychedelia to Underground comics in the style of Robert Crumb — and showing both artists’ development and stylistic diversity, the exhibition reveals, for the first time, the unique laboratory of ideas behind the subjects and techniques of two of America’s most challenging contemporary painters.

Carroll Dunham (*1949, New Haven, Connecticut) lives and works in New York City. Dunham's work has been presented in several solo and group exhibitions at important institutions, such as the Aspen Art Museum (2018); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); Brandhorst Museum, Munich; Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Geneva (both 2015); Denver Art Museum; MoMA, New York (both 2014); The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2013); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2010); Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Art Production Fund Lab, New York (both 2009); Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2003); New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2002). His work forms part of the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Tate Gallery, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. A duo exhibition together with Albert Oehlen at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf will be opening on 29 November 2019.

Michael Williams (*1978, Doylestown, Pennsylvania) lives and works in Los Angeles. Williams' work has been presented in several solo and group exhibitions at important institutions, such as the Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich (2019); Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut (2018); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; Le Consortium, Dijon (all 2017); Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal; secession, Vienna (both 2015); MoMA, New York; Dallas Museum of Art; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (all 2014); Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2011); Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas; MoMA PS1, New York (both 2006); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2003). His work can be found in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Dallas Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; MoMA, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.