Untitled

2016

Oil on canvas

180 × 150 × 3 cm (70 7/8 × 59 1/16 × 1 3/16 in.)

Bright white, grey, brown and yellow brushstrokes overlap, crisscross and merge on the surface of the large Untitled painting. Paint saturates the space of the canvas while letting the many successive layers show through in places.

A fan of free jazz, Albert Oehlen seems to have transposed that musical genre to painting, creating a dialogue between the coloured masses. He explores free improvisation through abstraction, making his art a continual game with ever-changing rules. "For me, freedom means playing. It doesn't mean being in a vacuum and getting excited about everything and anything. It means playing by your own rules.”

Untitled was first exhibited by the Pinault Collection at the 2018 "Cows by the Water" show at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.

Exhibitions