PARIS.- Almine Rech is presenting Art History is Wrong, Peter Saul’s first solo show with the gallery.
Peter Saul (b. 1934, San Fransisco, CA) continues today with his ever-constant exploration of the most pressing issues of the world and art, making him one of the most influential painters for young artists. Saul’s work expresses the quintessence of American art. Thousands of kilometres from the epicentre of Pop Art, a movement he affirms he does not belong to, while sharing its themes, Saul offers a more critical dimension, questioning both consumerist and imperialist models. Upon his return to the United States in 1964 he moved to California, the home of ‘Funk' art, with which his pictorial, pop, and surrealist practice found an echo.
Pop in a different vein, dazzling Funk, his art is a new way of making historical painting with the colors and clashes of today, just as his way of rewriting the masterpieces of painting prefigures Bad Painting and its success in the 1980s. He has also been consistently attentive to world chaos. The Vietnam War, the struggles for civil rights, American presidents (from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump), ecology, junk food and cigarettes are among the powerful themes he has addressed in his work.
In 2010 Saul was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2017, the first comprehensive survey of Saul's oeuvre in Europe took place at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt; it later traveled to Deichtorhallen in Hamburg.
Saul's work can be found in numerous institutional collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Yale University Art Gallery; and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
Peter Saul lives and works in Germantown, New York.
His retrospective Pop, Funk, Bad Painting and More at Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France, is on view until January 26, 2020. The exhibition will travel to Le Delta, Namur, Belgium, from March 7 to June 7, 2020.
His exhibition Peter Saul: Crime and Punishment, will be on view at the New Museum, New York, from February 11 to May 31. 2020.
