Dan Colen

Dan Colen (b. 1979) is part of New York’s 'downtown' art scene – the so-called 'Bowery School', which includes, among others, Nate Lowman, Terence Koh, Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow (recently deceased). This new generation of artists, often described as new superstars of the artworld, clearly perpetuates the legacy of Pop and Appropriationist Art, especially the ideals of Andy Warhol and Richard Prince. The Bowery School artists are however thoroughly embedded in contemporary American society, for better or worse, and continually destabilize the visual signs they encounter.

Dan Colen combines elements from mass-media and experiences from contemporary life with a subcultural language. He creates a personal remix that highlights beautiful and magical aspects of undervalued, everyday life. His artistic production encompasses photographs, painting and sculptures, and includes, among other things, Disney motifs and chewing gum on canvas, painted sculptures with 'low-cultural' references, graffiti-inspired text paintings and large installations with performative elements.

Among his best known works are monolithic sculptures – seemly found objects dragged in from urban areas. These are actually fake boulders crafted out of papier-mâché and covered with graffiti and realistic imitations of chewing gum and pigeon droppings. The inspiration for them, Colen claims, comes from Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris, and all the residue left in places that attract young people. The boulders are about the encounter between, on one hand, the banality and thoughtlessness characteristic of American youth culture, and on the other hand, the monumentality these large sculptures exude.

Colen eventually began painting pictures which look rather like bird shit on canvas. These are done in series of as many as 62 canvases, variously sized, with paint 'thrown' on the canvas in different ways. The powerful yet noisome impasto of green and white shades suggests performance art as much as painting. Some works look like they could have been made by Jackson Pollock, but viewers can also, along with the artist, enjoy the hypothetical idea of pigeons being the actual performers.

Like the sculptures, the exhibited painting Miracle on 34th Street (2008)* also has a monumental format and addresses the ambivalent relation between intelligence and stupidity. This work, unique in its enormity, draws on the legacy of American Abstractionism, its sublimity and greatness, and is executed in the same spirit and with the same technique as Colen’s smaller works. It is the only ‘bird shit’ painting with a title.

The title is appropriated from the film 'Miracle on 34th Street' (1947), which is set in New York City. Its plot hinges upon people who question whether the Santa at Macy’s department store is real. The title’s references undergird Colen’s aim: to make everything as unintelligent as possible. In this way he shows how our contemporary era intellectualizes and cultivates collective stupidity, e.g., by giving cult status to bad films. Colen gives many of his chewing gum paintings similar titles. He also produces text-paintings using American slang and references from pop-culture, and in this respect shares an affinity with Christopher Wool.

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* The work is no longer a part of the exhibition.