Donald Baechler
Donald Baechler | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Maryland Institute College of Art, Cooper Union, Städelschule |
| Known for | Painting, Assemblage |
Biography and Emergence
Donald Baechler (born 1956 in Hartford, Connecticut) is an American artist. He attended the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1974-77, and Cooper Union from 1977-78. Dissatisfied with New York City, he proceeded to the Staatliche Hochschule fuer Bildende Kuenste Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany.
"At Cooper Union I met some German exchange students. This was 1977, and I found the whole scene at the school to be white and boring, to be honest. It wasn’t what I wanted out of art school or what I wanted out of being in New York. The most interesting minds, the most interesting talents and energy came from those German kids. And they said, “Why don’t you come to Germany?” The easiest school to get into was the one attached to the Frankfurt Museum. The entrance requirements were less strict, so I went with it and spent a year in Frankfurt. They were very generous." [2]
He returned to New York City in 1980,[3] where he was soon a part of a burgeoning Lower Manhattan arts scene,[4] showing in the East Village and exhibition spaces seminal to "aerosol art history," such as the Fun Gallery.[5] [6] Baechler and Tony Shafrazi struck up an acquaintance over a shared interest in artist Joseph Kosuth.[7] Shafrazi was developing an interest in graffiti-oriented works, and founded a downtown gallery that represented Baechler, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and eventually Jean-Michel Basquiat.[8] "He [Shafrazi] did this 180-degree about-face and opened the gallery in Soho," said Baechler in a 2000 interview, "showing Keith Haring—whom I first met when he was a doorman at the Mudd Club—it really surprised me. Tony obviously had some grander vision about what was going on and decided that it wasn’t the end of conceptualism, but the beginning of something else. I never felt entirely comfortable showing my work there because it had nothing to do with what Keith and Kenny Scharf were doing. I wasn’t part of this downtown club scene, and I had nothing to do with so-called graffiti art."
His early work was noted for childlike imagery and thematics—associations which have recurred throughout his career.[9] "Like Art Brut," wrote Steven Vincent in Art in America "Donald Baechler's seemingly ingenuous depictions of everyday objects and simple figures succeed in large part by tapping into our nostalgia for childhood, that period of life before the rivening onset of self-consciousness and guilt. It's a myth, of course: children are hardly angelic, and alienation is the state of humanity—while Beachler's art works hard to achieve its trademark appearance of prelapsarian sincerity and artlessness."[10]
Art and Context
References
- ^ Bomb Magazine, Summer 2000, interviewed by David Kapp
- ^ Bomb Magazine, Summer 2000, interviewed by David Kapp
- ^ Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Profile
- ^ New York Times, May 16, 2008, Roberta Smith
- ^ at149st.com
- ^ Bomb Magazine, Summer 2000, interviewed by David Kapp
- ^ Bomb Magazine, Summer 2000, interviewed by David Kapp
- ^ New York Times, May 16, 2008, Roberta Smith
- ^ The Kansas City Star (November 17, 1993)
- ^ Art in America, September 2005, Steven Vincent