CHRISTOPHER WOOL
STAND F4
(1955, Chicago, Illinois)
Untitled, 2005 Enamel on linen, cm.h. 198 x 152.5
Christopher Wool’s work aims to critique and redefine painting. In this piece from his well-known enamel series, the boundaries of painting are questioned through his distinctive approach to the inner space of the canvas and the use of enamel—a material foreign to art history yet closely tied to global social and cultural history. The final work, a painting, presents a hazy yet thrilling image, still yet fast-moving, marking one of the high points of 21st-century painting.
Christopher Wool’s first exhibition at Christian Stein was in 1990.
Christopher Wool is widely regarded as one of the preeminent and most influential American painters of his generation. He was born in 1955, grew up in Chicago, and moved to New York City in the early 1970s. Since establishing himself as an artist in the 1980s, Wool has forged an agile, highly focused practice that incorporates a variety of processes and mediums, paying special attention to the complexities of painting. Wool’s creative output also incorporates photography, sculpture, artist books, and printmaking.
Wool’s work has been exhibited extensively around the world in many solo and group exhibitions. Solo shows include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1989); Museum Boymans–van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (1991, traveled to Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; and Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany); Eli Broad Family Foundation, Los Angeles (1992); Ophiuchus Collection, The Hydra Workshop, Greece (1998); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1998, traveled to Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and Kunsthalle Basel); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (1999); Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2002, traveled to Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland, through 2003); Camden Arts Centre, London (2004); Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia, Spain (2006); ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Zurich (2006); Museu de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2008, traveled to Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2012); and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2013, traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago).