Ross Bleckner

New York • 1949

Ross Bleckner studied at New York University together with Sol Lewitt and Chuck Close, and after graduation he continued his studies at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia (CA), where he met David Salle.
He became part of the New York art community in the 1980s, as one of its outstanding figures. His first works, called Stripes and based on the Op Art approach, are composed of a series of vertical lines of different colors that alternate, exploiting the laws of optics. Towards the end of the 1980s he made a series of works with a more symbolic character, entitled Memorials, focusing on the theme of illness and death, especially in relation to the AIDS epidemic which devastated the American art community. These are canvases where everyday objects like vases and flowers stand out against a dark background like ghostly presences. Starting in 1987 he made the series Constellations and Nocturnal Architectures, a succession of starry skies with a lyrical, poetic nature, composed of pure forms of light that vibrate on the surface of the painting. In that same period, due to the illness of his father caused by a tumor, he became interested in the theme of anatomy, especially the image of DNA and cells seen through a microscope. This observation revealed a microcosm of unusual elements, simultaneously repugnant and fascinating, like tumor cells and sarcomas, which he depicted in his famous Cell Paintings, through circular forms of color, light and semi-transparent spheres. In the 1990s he did the Birds series, painting colored silhouettes of birds that seem to have been captured and imprinted on the dark canvas precisely in the act of flight, the symbol of maximum freedom. Starting in the early 2000s he shifted towards sublimated, almost abstract floral images, in the so-called Flower Paintings. Flowers, in fact, represent a fundamental and recurring feature in all his work. According to Bleckner, more than any other images that of flowers is able to embody the relationship between mortality and the human condition, darkness and light, abstraction and representation, while reflecting on the connection between man and nature. In his Flower Paintings we can glimpse the pursuit of a balance between the inner world of dreams and the outer world of facts, that which by appearance is considered indubitably real and rational. In this way Bleckner attempts to transform momentaneous being in time into an infinite artistic moment, without every denying or suppressing the transient nature of life.
Bleckner is a board member of AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA), a non-profit center for research and health education, of which he is one of the founders. In 2009 he was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations, the first artist to hold this position.
Bleckner was also honored by the Parrish Art Museum of Southampton, New York, for his outstanding contribution to humanitarian and cultural causes all over the world.
His works are included in the collections of the most important international art museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the MOCA in Los Angeles, the Jewish Museum and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate Britain in London and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Lives and works in New York

SOLO EXHIBITIONS - Selection

2019

Pharmaceutria, Petzel, new York

2018

New Paintings, Mazzoli Gallery, Modena, Italy

2017

Dallas Contemporary, Dallas (TX), USA

2016

Bohm Chapel, Cologne, Germany
Leila Heller Gallery, Dubai (UAE), USA

2015

Baldwin Gallery, Aspen (CO), USA

2014

Maruani & Mercier Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Mary Boone Gallery, New York (NY), USA

2012

Jablonka Galerie, Cologne, Germany

2011

Maruani & Noirhomme Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Scott White Fine Art, San Diego (CA), USA

2010

Mary Boone Gallery, New York (NY), USA
Meditation & Time, Mazzoli gallery, Modena, Italy
Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland

2009

Baldwin Gallery, Aspen (CO), USA

2008

Imago Galleries, Palm Springs (CA), USA

2007

Cais Gallery, Seoul, Korea.
Mary Boone Gallery, New York (NY), USA

2006

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland

2005

Ruzicska Gallery, Salzburg, Austria

2004

Dialogue with Space, Esbjerg Art Museum, Esbjerg, Denmark

2003

Lehman Maupin Gallery, NYC (NY), USA
Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

2001

Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

2000

Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston (MA), USA
Galerie Ernst Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland
Maureen Paley/Interim Art, London, England

1999

Paintings 1997-1999, Mazzoli gallery, Modena, Italy
Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

1997

Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France
Bawag Foundation, Vienna, Austria

1996

Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

1995

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC (NY), USA
Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo, Norway
I.Y.A.M.. Centre Julio Gonzalez, Yalencia, Spain

1994

Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

1993

Galerie Max Metzler, Koln, Germany
Guild Hall, East Hampton (NY), USA

1991

Kolnischer Kunstverein, Koln, Germany
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

1990

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada
Kunsthalle Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

1989

Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee (WI), USA
Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (TX), USA
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (PA), USA

1988

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (CA), USA
Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

1987

Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

1986

Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston (MA), USA
Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

1983

Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

1975

Cunningham Ward Gallery in New York (NY), USA

GROUP EXHIBITIONS - Selection

2019

SummerPleasures at Meyerovich, Group Show by Charles Arnoldi, Ross Bleckner, Carlos Cruz- Diez, Deborah Kass, Alex Katz and Bernar Venet, Meyerovich Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Over the rainbow, Mirat, Madrid, Spain

2018

The Shadow of the Sun, Ross Bleckner and Zachary Logan, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada 2017
Blue Black, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, MI, USA

2016

Phantom Bodies: The Human Aura in Art, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville (TN), USA
Art Aids America, The Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma (WA), USA

2015

Ross Bleckner and Volker Eichelmann, Sargent's Daughters, NYC (NY), USA

2014

In the Beginning/End States, Sgorbati Projects, NYC (NY), USA
Repetitive Motion, SHFAP at Projector Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

2013

Paint Hotel, Joe Sheftel Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

2012

Conceptual Abstraction, Hunter College Time Square Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

2011

Surrounding Bacon and Warhol: Selections from the Astrup Fearnley Collection, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway
Pop Art 1960's-2000's From Misumi Collection, Kawaguchiko Museum of Art, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan
Magic Hand, ARTBLOGARTBLOG, NYC (NY), USA
An Instance of Vibration, Anonymous Gallery, NYC (NY)

2010

Your History is not Our History, Haunch of Venison, NYC (NY), USA
Selections, LA Art House, West Hollywood, (CA), USA
Other as Animal, Danese Gallery, New York (NY), USA
America: Here and Now, traveling exhibition
Stream of the Unknown: Selections from the Collection, Fisher Landau Center for Art, Long Island City, (NY), USA
In Dialogue, Anonymous Gallery, NYC (NY), USA.

2009

A Tribute to Ron Warren, Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

2008

Genesis- The Art of Creation, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland
Empires and Environments, The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham (MA), USA

2007

Time .01: I Love My Scene/Scene 3, Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

2006

View Nine: I Love My Scene/Scene 3, Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA

2005

Picturing America: Selections from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum, Nagasaki, Japan.
Zoo Story, Fisher Landau Center for Art, Long Island City, New York (NY), USA

2004

Flowers, Mary Boone Gallery, NYC (NY), USA
Flowers Observed, Flowers Transformed, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (PA), USA
A Celebration of the Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Honorees in the Visual Arts, Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York (NY), USA
North Fork/South Fork: East End Art Now/Part ll, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York (NY), USA

2003

Me & More, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland.

2002

Art Downtown: New York Painting and Sculpture, 48 Wall Street, NYC (NY), USA

2001

Mythic Proportions: Painting in the 1980s, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida (FL), USA

Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons: Four Decades of Art from the Broad Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (CA), USA

2000

In the Power of Painting, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.
On Canvas: Contemporary Painting, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC (NY), USA
In the Power of Painting, Alesco, Zurich, Switzerland.

1999

The American Century: Art and Culture 1950-2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC (NY), USA

1997

Birth of the Cool: Amerikanische Malerei, Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

1996

Nuevas Abstracciones, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain.

1995

Passions Privees, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France.

1994

Painting and Sculpture: Recent Acquisitions, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC (NY), USA

1992

Slow Art: Painting in New York Now, P.S. 1 Museum, Long Island City (NY), USA

1991

Mito y Magia en America: Los Ochenta, Museo de arte contemporaneo de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico
Metropolis, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany.
Devil on the Stairs: Looking Back on the Eighties, Institute of Contemporary Art,Philadelphia (PA), USA

1989

1989 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC (NY), USA
Prospect 89, Frankfurt Kunstverein and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany

1988

Biennial of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
The Image of Abstraction, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (CA), USA
The Binational/Die Binationale, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (MA), USA
Art at the End of the Social, The Rooseum, Malmo, Sweden
Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

1987

1987 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC (NY), USA

1985

Currents, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (MA), USA

1984

The Meditative Surface, The Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago (ILL), USA

1981

New York in Black and White, The Museum of Modern Art/Penthouse, New York (NY), USA

1979

New Painting/New York, Hayward Gallery, London, England

Download CV

on-line exhibitions