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A black and white image taken going through the Battery tunnel printed on top of a pink-hued cellulose sponge backdrop.

Adam McEwen

Battery Tunnel (Pink)

2016

inkjet print on cellulose sponge

37 x 64.5 inches

94 x 163.8 cm

Adam McEwen -  - Viewing Room - Petzel Gallery

Adam McEwen's studio. Image from Collectista.

 

 

 

:The effect I like experiencing is one of disorientation

If I can create that sensation in someone else for a split

second then it opens a door. In that moment you can take

.them into an unfamiliar place, just for a minute

Adam McEwen -  - Viewing Room - Petzel Gallery

Floto + Warner

Adam McEwen (b. 1965, London, U.K.) currently lives and works in New York. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford and California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA.

Adam McEwen’s work resides somewhere between the celebratory and funeral. His work addresses the blurred boundaries between life and death; reality and fiction; and the everyday and the obscure. After writing obituaries for the Daily Telegraph in London, he began producing obituaries of living subjects such as Bill Clinton and Jeff Koons, highlighting the blurred line between history and fiction. He is known for paintings employing wads of chewing gum on canvas that reference the bombing of German cities in the Second World War, and for machined graphite sculptures of banal objects such as a water cooler or an air conditioner. His repurposing of the over-familiar creates momentary ruptures, which in the words of one writer, “jolt us temporarily out of our indifference, owing to over-exposure, toward the signs that dominate our daily lives.”

McEwen has shown his work internationally at many galleries and institutions. Most recent exhibitions of his work include The Glass House, New Canaan, CT; The Lever House, New York, NY; and The Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO. McEwen’s work is included in collections such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; De la Cruz Collection, Miami; The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, CT; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany; Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, Scotland; and Arts Council Collection, London.

Adam McEwen -  - Viewing Room - Petzel Gallery

Adam McEwen, Petzel Gallery, 2019

Installation view

ADAM MCEWEN IS AN EXCELLENT JOURNEYMAN ARTIST WHO KEEPS A LOW PROFILE BEHIND AN ASTUTE RECYCLING OF OBJECTS AND IMAGES. HIS WORK HAS A STREAMLINED INTELLIGENCE, ATTENTION TO DETAIL AND AUSTERE BEAUTY THAT MAKE IT SEEM TRANSPARENT YET MYSTERIOUS, STRAIGHTFORWARD YET PERVERSE.

.Roberta Smith, New York Times, 2016. Read the full article here