Adam McEwen
Headhunter
2018
Inkjet print on cellulose sponge and graphite
76.4 x 57.5 inches
Adam McEwen (b. 1965, London, U.K.)
Adam McEwen was born in London, United Kingdom in 1965 and 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 funereal. 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. His first solo museum show in the United States, I Think I’m in Love, opened at the Aspen Art Museum in 2017. His most recent solo exhibitions have been held by The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2019); Gagosian, Los Angeles (2018); Galerie Art : Concept, Paris (2017); Petzel, New York (2016, 2015); The Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2015); Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2014); Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels (2013); The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2013); Gagosian, Los Angeles (2011); and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2011).
He has participated in group exhibitions at the Hole Gallery, New York, NY (2019); MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland (2018); Marlborogh Contemporary, New York, NY (2017); Winter Palace and 21er Haus, Vienna (2016); MOMA PS1, New York (2015), the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015); Museum of the Moving Image, New York (2016); the Edgewood Gallery, Yale University of Art, New Haven (2014); The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel (2013); Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands (2013); Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis (2012); the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2008).
He has also worked on curatorial projects with Gladstone Gallery, New York (2018); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2010); and Gagosian Gallery, New York (2007), amongst others.
McEwen’s work is included in private collections such as the Centre Pompidou; The Whitney Museum of American Art; The Guggenheim Museum; Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris; The Sculpture Center, New York; and Jumex Collection, Mexico City, among others.
