↳ Exhibitions

Alex Hubbard at Galerie Neu

April 9, 2018

Artist: Alex Hubbard

Exhibition title: Private Lives

Venue: Galerie Neu, Berlin, Germany

Date: March 9 – April 18, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Galerie Neu, Berlin

Following his first exhibition in 2014, Private Lives is the second solo show by American artist, Alex Hubbard, at Galerie Neu. Hubbard is a painter and video artist. His practice unites both disciplines in a symbiotic way whereby the examination of the performative process and its physicality are equally at the center. Three large-format paintings made of layers of pigmented urethane, resin, and fiberglass are at the core of this exhibition. Underlying stencil drawings are being washed-out by layers of synthetic materials. Its temporality withdraws every deliberation and explores accidental compositions, colors, and depths, typically found in the work of Hubbard. In juxtaposition are four small-scale cabinet pieces, oscillating the instability between painting and sculpture on one hand and abstraction and figuration on the other. Each shadow box reveals behind semi-drawn curtains a painting – both abstract and representational. Framed by shapes and colors of outdated wallpaper they presume a continuation of the domestic space apparent in the artist’s Bar Paintings whilst introducing an unprecedented intimacy inherent in each cabin. The question of the supremacy of painting, of what abstraction is today, and the re-examination of Hubbard’s own practice prevails.

Alex Hubbard (born 1975) lives and works in Los Angeles. He completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York in 2003. Recent institutional solo exhibitions include the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, US (2014); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, US (2012); Kunsthalle Berlin, Berlin, DE (2010); Mercer Union – Centre for Contemporary Visual Art, Toronto, CA (2010). Amongst major group shows are: “Optik Schröder II”, mumok, Vienna, AT (2018); Artists Space, New York, US (2017); Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, US (2016); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US (2015); Le Consortium, Dijon, FR (2014); Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, Graz, AT (2013); “Greater New York”, MoMA PS1, New York, US (2010). Alex Hubbard’s work is represented in public collections such as the Marciano Collection, Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art – North Miami (MOCA), Miami.

Alex Hubbard, Private Lives, 2018, exhibition view, Galerie Neu, Berlin

Alex Hubbard, Constantly Native, 2018, Urethane, resin, fiberglass, found wallpaper, wood, fabric, 86,5 x 107 x 7,5 cm

Alex Hubbard, Private Lives, 2018, Urethane, resin, fiberglass, found wallpaper, wood, fabric, 103,5 x 122 x 7,5 cm

Alex Hubbard, Predictable Memories, 2018, Oil on canvas, found wallpaper, wood, 103,5 x 122 x 7,5 cm

Alex Hubbard, Nocturnal Parameters, 2018, Oil on canvas, found wallpaper, wood, fabric, 86,5 x 107 x 7,5 cm

Alex Hubbard, Untitled Charcoal Painting (Geburtskanal), 2018, Aluminium panel, acrylic, pigmented ure-thane, charcoal, resin on linen, 216,5 x 175,5 x 4 cm