We Hover
2020
Oil on linen
36 x 30 in.
91.4 x 76.2 cm
Sean Landers (b. 1962, Palmer, MA)
Sean Landers is a painter and multimedia artist living and working in New York. Landers received his MFA from Yale University School of Art in 1986 and his BFA from Philadelphia College of Art in 1984. From confessions poured out in weblike formations on legal pads to revisions of Hogarth paintings and lonely clowns at sea, Landers’s artworks span an enormous breadth of subjects and touch on existential themes. Landers has exhibited widely and had solo exhibitions at Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2020); greengrassi, London (2020); Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium (2019); Ben Brown Gallery, Hong Kong (2019); Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2016); Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2015); Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, (2010); and the Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (2004).
His work has been included in exhibitions at the Musée Magritte, Brussels (2017); ICA, Miami (2017); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2015); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); New Museum, New York (2013); DESTE Foundation, Athens (2013); Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa (2011); Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (2011); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2011); Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany (2009); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams (2009); Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, France (2009); White Columns, New York (2008); Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland (2008); 4th Berlin Biennial, Germany (2006); and MoMA PS1, Long Island City (2006).
His works are included in public collections including the Tate Modern, London; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Fundación/Colección Jumex, Mexico City; Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; and The Brooklyn Museum, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg; Seattle Art Museum, Washington; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Walker Art Center, Minnesota; and The Kistefos Museum and Sculpture Garden, Jefnaker, Norway, among many others.
“Anne Sexton wrote ‘there is death in every goodbye.’ I find that true for paintings as well. We painters transfer fractions of our life into our paintings. One day, paintings will be all that remain of us. By painting we are in a sense saying goodbye, but through the existence of the painting we never leave.”
–Sean Landers
Installation view, Sean Landers, North American Mammals, Petzel, 2014
1962 Born in Palmer, MA
1984 Graduates Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia, PA
1986 Graduates Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT
1990 Begins showing with Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
1993-1996 Shows extensively in galleries and museums domestically and internationally
1997 Heart, Mind, Body, Soul: American Art in the 1990s, Selections from the Permanent Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2002 Sean Landers: Psycomatica Tokyo, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2004 Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, curated by Beatrix Ruf (Catalogue)
Installation view, Sean Landers, Le Consortium, Dijon, France, 2020
2008 Begins showing with Petzel
2010 Sean Landers: 1991–1994, Improbable History, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO (Catalogue)
2011 Around the World Alone, Petzel, New York
2012 Begins showing with Galerie Rodolphe Janssen
2014 North American Mammals, Petzel, New York (Catalogue)
2015 Sean Landers, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium (Catalogue)
2019 Sean Landers, Ben Brown, Gallery, Hong Kong
2020 Sean Landers, Le Consortium, Dijon, France
2023 Sean Landers, Adrift, Petzel, New York (Catalogue)
Sean Landers, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (Forthcoming)
Installation view, Sean Landers, Le Consortium, Dijon, France, 2020
Installation view, Sean Landers, Ben Brown Gallery, Hong Kong, 2019-2020
Installation view, Sean Landers, North American Mammals, Petzel, 2014
Installation view, Sean Landers, Around the World Alone, Petzel, New York, 2011
