Frühstück now (Self -Portrait)
1984
Oil and lacquer on canvas
160.5 × 130.5 cm (63 3/16 × 51 3/8 in.)
A huge sculpted portrait stands on a wide base in a room that is empty save a cigar and an Albanian flag hung on the wall. The sculpture is a self-portrait of the painter, Albert Oehlen, who seems to be gazing at the viewer with mistrust.
The weird mood in Frühstück Now (Self-Portrait) recalls the surrealist De Chirico’s metaphysical portraits. It dates to the beginning of the German artist's career in the early 1980s, when his painting was still figurative. Yet the simplified volumes, assertive two-dimensionality and chromatic treatment of surfaces herald a shift towards abstraction, the genre most apt to free the creative act and reveal the essence of painting.
Frühstück Now (Self-Portrait) was exhibited for the first time by the Pinault Collection at the 2018 solo show "Cows by the Water" at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.
The weird mood in Frühstück Now (Self-Portrait) recalls the surrealist De Chirico’s metaphysical portraits. It dates to the beginning of the German artist's career in the early 1980s, when his painting was still figurative. Yet the simplified volumes, assertive two-dimensionality and chromatic treatment of surfaces herald a shift towards abstraction, the genre most apt to free the creative act and reveal the essence of painting.
Frühstück Now (Self-Portrait) was exhibited for the first time by the Pinault Collection at the 2018 solo show "Cows by the Water" at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.
Exhibitions
Albert OEHLEN © Adagp, Paris.
