Albert Oehlen is once again dealing with “hand-made painting”. A form of painting that nonetheless explicitly knows its opposite and, as such, playfully neutralises it. Contemporary, but… Therein lies their ‘contemporaneity’, which today almost sounds like melancholy. Perhaps a little bit of comfort and gentle, complex dreams after all? Hopefully. Thus the works can be “simultaneously abstract and representational” and, in spite of all criticism and cynical harshness, extend beyond the mere present, like the "trees" which also unfold upon them. If “you follow this minimal rule”, there really are trees: “If you say there is something thicker in the middle which gets thinner on the outside, and strokes that move away from it, it is a tree. And if you look at one of the branches, you can see that it has its own ideas. In this way I have fulfilled the representational but can likewise satisfy the ‘task of the abstract artist’ and allow for the most unusual combination of lines to be found.” It is not the digitalised world of goods that “helps [him] with painting” but, on the contrary, it might be that Albert Oehlen, painting precisely with these outlandish lines, offers impressive ‘points of assistance’ in the understanding of the images of our present. Read More
Characteristic of Oehlen’s work is the intensive collaboration with fellow artists since the late 1970s, among them Werner Büttner, Heimo Zobernig, Martin Kippenberger, Jörg Immendorff, Georg Herold and his brother Markus Oehlen. Oehlen’s painting style is characterized by expressive brushwork and ironic pictorial references. He is considered one of the protagonists of the neo-expressionist movement “Neue Wilde”. His impressive oeuvre includes paintings, drawings, collages, prints and computer graphics.
In recent years, alongside his work in painting, Oehlen has increasingly turned his attention to the medium of film. In 2022, the docudrama “Der Maler” (The Painter), a cinematic self-portrait of the artist starring Ben Becker and co-directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, was released in the movie theaters. He later worked with the same director on “Yellow” (2024) and directed “Bad Painter” (2025) for the first time solely by him. As a director and screenwriter, he has created projects that translate his visual language into moving images. His films reflect a similar approach to that of his painting: they challenge traditional conventions, are formally daring, playful, provocative, humorous, and intellectually engaging. In doing so, he extends his influence far beyond the realm of classical visual art and is regarded as a key figure in contemporary art.
His works are included in numerous public collections, such as The Broad, Los Angeles, CA; Daimler Contemporary, Berlin; de la Cruz Collection, Miami; Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg; FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand; FRAC Île-de-France Le Plateau, Paris; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea, Brumadinho, Brasil; Kunstmuseum Bonn; MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Museum of Modern Art, New York; MUMOK Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich; Saatchi Gallery, London.
