She's Come Undone

Group exhibition Curated by Augusto Arbizo Bill Adams (NY) Kai Althoff (Germany) Glenn Brown (UK) Ann Conway (NY) Holly Coulis (NY) Ann Craven (NY) John Currin (NY) Nuno de Campos (Portugal) Edward del Rosario (NY) Naomi Fisher (Miami) Tim Gardner (Canada) Lothar Hempel (Germany) Mika Kato (Japan) Kurt Kauper (NY) Jenny Laden (NY) JP Munro (LA) Wangechi Mutu (Kenya/NY) Paul P. (Canada) Richard Patterson (UK) Philippe Perrot (France) Matt Saunders (WA/Germany) Jenny Scobel (NY) Shahzia Sikander (Pakistan) Jeff Sonhouse (NY) Ryan Steadman (NY) Tim Stoner (UK) Neal Tait (UK) Thomas Trosch (LA) Richard Wathen (UK) Michael Wetzel (NY) Kehinde Wiley (NY) Lisa Yuskavage (NY)

Artemis Greenberg Van Doren Gallery is pleased to present a thematic group exhibition of paintings titled She’s Come Undone, organized by artist and curator Augusto Arbizo. On view from June 3 – July 16, 2004, the exhibition features several generations of international contemporary artists – including NY, LA, Miami, Paris, Tokyo, London, and Berlin - working in the figurative genre.

Featuring a dynamic group of thirty-two artists, She’s Come Undone focuses on current trends in contemporary figurative painting – from staged studio portraits and romantic pastiche to more photo and film inspired works. A strong dedication to the craft of painting – particularly the modeling of form through the use of light and color – is evident in all the artists’ works. Many feature traditional format single figures in imagined theatrical settings or situations. Other works present the human form as abstracted, fragmented, or decorated. Figures and groupings become narratives – fictional and otherwise.

She’s Come Undone is less a selective survey of recent figuration and more an inclusive sampling of the genre’s many possibilities - as well as of painting itself. The show is anchored by an early work by John Currin, painted in 1990, when figuration was considered an anachronism. Currin’s ‘yearbook picture’ provides a context for the rest of exhibition, which features new and recent work – from ‘portraits’ by Glenn Brown, Ann Craven, Kehinde Wiley, Mika Kato, and Richard Wathen to fête galantes by Holly Coulis and Tim Stoner. Works by younger artists such as Jeff Sonhouse, Lothar Hempel, and Wangechi Mutu feature stylized and abstracted figures, while those by Edward del Rosario, Nuno de Campos and Kurt Kauper are more straightforward and contemplative.