Albert Oehlen & Kim Gordon

Press Release

Corbett vs. Dempsey is pleased to present Albert Oehlen & Kim Gordon, an exhibition of new paintings and multi-media works. This is Oehlen’s fifth show with the gallery and Gordon’s first exhibition in Chicago.

In this exhibition, German-born artist Albert Oehlen presents three monumental pieces on shaped aluminum. With enamel paint marks applied directly to the raw substates, which are cut into “omega” shapes similar to those of some newer Oehlen works, these 12-foot-tall, 15-foot-wide metal paintings come equipped with sonic transducers on each of their four adjacent panels. When amplified, the paintings act as de facto speakers and project sound vibrations into the room. Oehlen invited Kim Gordon to make soundtracks for the works. She developed these sound recordings in direct material relationship with the paintings, using the transduced metal plates as amplifiers for her electric guitar. Rather than simply making these sounds for the paintings, she made the sounds on them. Gordon’s bracing improvisations, lasting around 8-minutes each, explore a wide range of colors, from chords, drone, and feedback to electrical noises made with the unplugged guitar cord. The works play intermittently, erupting energetically, then relaxing into silence, their metal forms and the gestural lines inscribed on them supercharged by Gordon’s music. In addition to these three works made collaboratively by the two artists, the exhibition presents a new canvas by Oehlen and a group of small, vibrant paintings by Gordon.

Based between Switzerland, Berlin, Spain, and Los Angeles, Albert Oehlen (b. 1954) is one of the most widely-celebrated contemporary artists. His work has adopted and invented numerous approaches to painting and more recently sculpture. In the last few years, Oehlen has also been writing and directing full-length feature films, including Painter, Bad Painter (featuring Kim Gordon in an acting role), and Yellow. His work has been exhibited in institutions around the world, including recent solo shows at Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany (2024), Espace Louis Vuitton Beijing, China (2024), Friedrichs Foundation, Weidingen, Germany (2023), and Serpentine Galleries, London, UK (2019).

Kim Gordon (b. 1953) is a musician and visual artist based in Los Angeles. Her latest record, The Collective (2024), was met with widespread critical acclaim and received two Grammy nominations. She has been the subject of a recent solo exhibition at 303 Gallery, New York, and is currently in shows at gnration, Braga, Portugal and Efraín López, New York. Gordon is half of Body/Head and was a founding member of the band Sonic Youth.

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