Albert Oehlen - Mirror Paintings 1982-1990

Mirror Paintings between 1982 and 1990 - between Albert Oehlen's earliest work, when he found a new freedom in figurative painting with loose brushstrokes and a subversive sense of humor, and the end of the decade, when he painted mostly abstract canvases, riddling his inventive compositions with art-historical references and playful motifs. Oehlen first glued mirrors onto the painting surface as part of an arsenal of sometimes absurd challenges he posed on himself, painting over and around them with thick colors and layers of varnish. The mirrors at the same time became part of the composition, disrupted the pictorial space, and, with a wink, included the figure of the viewer into paintings of living rooms, museum interiors, or stage-like spaces enclosed by heavy brick walls.