Untitled (Elevator 1-8) and Raumflug

Twenty years separate Raumflug (1996) and the Elevator series (2016), but together they present a certain vision of the reflexive development of Oehlen's approach to painting. Raumflug features coloured squares in a sharp-lined grid, like a huge sample. The Elevator series comprises eight paintings where a flood of paint, including drips and mixtures, is on similar geometric backgrounds. Order is at odds with improvisation.

In both works, now together according to the artist's wishes, colour is the subject. Form and composition are important in his other abstract works, but here they nearly disappear. Despite their differences, they share the same aim: to tell the story of painting and reveal the widest possible range of its chromatic facets.

The Elevator series and Raumflug were jointly exhibited by the Pinault Collection at the artist's 2018 solo show "Cows by the Water" at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.