Albert Oehlen. ‘Untitled’, 2018
A limited-edition screenprint, signed by the artist
- Numbered and signed screenprint in an edition of 100. The abstract motif recalls the limbs of a tree, taking up a theme that first appeared in Oehlen’s work in 1988 and which he has recently explored further.
- Realized by hand from start to finish: each of the four colors are handmade, customized with real pigments, and the screenprint itself was hand-printed with the help of two artisans—a feat given its whopping size of 120 x 92 cm (47 x 36 in.).
- Printed on paper from the company Zerkall—one of the last few manufacturers producing the high-quality archival paper stock used here. Composed of cotton fiber and high alpha cellulose, it is renowned for its smoothness, as well as its acid-free, non-aging properties.
- The paper, printing process, and colors are all carbon-neutral and organic.
“I see the tree as a program for my work, not just as a motif. This is the problem: how do you represent something that has no consistent form? If you were able to take all trees together, you would only be able to elucidate the principle of the thing. And if you were to single out a few trees and look at them, you would notice that they do all kinds of crazy shit with their branches. From that I concluded that
my task as an artist was to make all kinds of crazy shit with my lines—essentially, the same thing a tree does. You become a tree yourself and let your branches grow.”
— Albert Oehlen
The artist
Albert Oehlen was born in Krefeld, Germany, in 1954. After graduating from the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Hamburg, in 1978, he came to prominence in the early 1980s, and has exhibited internationally. Influenced by Georg Baselitz, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, Oehlen's work focuses on the process of painting, exposing its structural elements. He lives in Switzerland.
Albert Oehlen. ‘Untitled’, 2018
Edition of 100
Screenprint on Zerkall mould-made paper (300 g/sm), four colors, 47 x 36 in.
