The group of paintings assembled was previously exhibited in Cologne and Munich between 1991 and 1995, before the artist moved to New York. These early canvases can give an insight to her current works. In particular, von Heyl has never distinguished abstract from representational form, rather, she has used all the visual tools at her disposal to lure the viewer into her compositions. The early paintings juxtapose textured fields of color with emblems that have the ability to allude to skin tone, nature, and industrial elements, among other motifs. Now and then her paintings function like a visual oxymoron: funny but not humorous, fluidly painted yet collaged, both experimental and expertly composed. Von Heyl treads into the unfamiliar, finding a place beyond language, discourse and argument that can only be articulated in painting.
Authors: Charline von Heyl, Isabelle Graw
Publisher: Petzel, New York
Language: English
Softcover: 80 pages
25.4 x 30.5cm
ISBN: 978-0-9863230-1-0
About the artist
Charline von Heyl was born in Germany in 1960 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. She currently divides her time between New York, NY and Marfa, TX.
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.
Her work has been exhibited both in the United States and abroad, including solo museum exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC (2018); the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium (2018); Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago (2015); the Tate Liverpool, United Kingdom (2012); the Kunsthalle Nurnberg, Germany (2012); Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2009), and the Vienna Secession, Vienna, Austria (2004), among many others.
Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Greene Naftali, New York (2019); Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Germany (2017); Gladstone Gallery, New York (2018); The Institute of Contemporary Art Chicago (2016); Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2015); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014); Sculpture Center, New York (2011), and The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles (2008), among many others.
Von Heyl’s works are in the collections of the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Tate, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Hammer, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.