Charline von Heyl (b. 1960, Germany)
Charline von Heyl was born in Germany and has lived in the United States since 1996. She studied painting in Hamburg and Düsseldorf and participated in the Cologne-based art scene in the 1980s.
Von Heyl's first survey show was at Le Consortium, Dijon in 2009. Her first U.S. museum show was at the Dallas Museum of Art in 2005 and her first US survey was at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia in 2011. In 2025, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
She has been in solo exhibitions at The George Economou Collection, Athens (2025); Petzel, New York (2023); Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne (2021); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2018); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2018); Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (2018); Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago (2015); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2012); and Kunsthalle Nurnberg, Nuremberg (2012).
Von Heyl’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2024); Hill Art Foundation, New York (2023); Petzel, New York (2023); Le Consortium, Dijon (2022); La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2022); The Broad, Los Angeles (2021); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg (2021); The Kitchen, New York (2020); Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2019); among many others.
Von Heyl's work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New Yok; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York; Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom; Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris France; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California; Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany; among others.
Charline von Heyl lives and works between New York and Marfa, Texas.
“I’m just trying to keep the paintings ahead of language. Or better yet, ahead of sentences. Nothing is truly beyond language, obviously. I just want to get the viewer to move past definitions and on to something more personal and fragile, a place where thoughts and feelings meet, where looking feels like thinking.”
—Charline von Heyl in conversation with Evelyn C. Hankins, “The Eye Is Always Game: A Conversation with Charline von Heyl,” Charline von Heyl – Snake Eyes, 2018
Installation view, Whitney Biennial, 2014
1960 Born, Germany
1995 Moves to New York
1996 Begins showing with Petzel
2005 Solo exhibition Concentrations 48: Charline von Heyl, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
2009 Solo exhibition Le Temps de Boire est Arrive’, Le Consortium, Dijon, FR
2011 Solo exhibition, ICA Philadelphia; ICA Boston
2013 Solo exhibition, Petzel, New York
2014 Participates in Whitney Biennial
Installation view, Petzel, 2018
2015 Solo exhibition Düsseldorf: Paintings from the Early 90’s, accompanied by catalogue, Petzel, New York
Solo exhibition Charline von Heyl, Why Not?, accompanied by catalogue, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago
2018 Solo exhibition Charline von Heyl: Snake Eyes, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (catalogue), Washington DC; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany; Museum Dhondt- Dhaenens, Deurle; Petzel
2021 Solo exhibition Charline von Heyl, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, DE
2023 Solo exhibition, Petzel, New York
2025 Solo exhibition The Giddy Road to Ruin, The George Economou Collection, Athen
Installation view, Charline von Heyl, Petzel, 2023.
Installation view, Charline von Heyl, Petzel, 2023.
Installation view, Charline von Heyl, Petzel, 2023.
Installation view, Charline von Heyl: The Giddy Road to Ruin, The George Economou Collection, 2025–26.
Installation view, Petzel, 2018
Installation view, Petzel, 2018
Installation view, Charline von Heyl: Snake Eyes, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2018
Installation view, Whitney Biennial, 2014
Installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2012
The George Economou Collection, Athens
June 14, 2025 – March 2026
