About
Combining an affection for the full breadth of contemporary visual culture with an informed awareness of representational painting’s lengthy history, Jamian Juliano-Villani draws on a vast spectrum of references to produce uncanny and evocative images.
Juliano-Villani was born in 1987 in Newark, New Jersey, and lives and works in New York. As the daughter of commercial silkscreen printers, she spent time as a child working in her parents’ factory, folding more than four thousand Pope John Paul II T-shirts in ninety-seven-degree heat while absorbing the influence of 1990s and 2000s mass-market print design. She attended the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, New Jersey, graduating with a BFA. While there, she was influenced by the institution’s historic ties to Fluxus, her studies with John Yau and Raphael Ortiz, and the Zimmerli Art Museum’s collection of 1970s Soviet conceptual painting.
In 2013, Juliano-Villani presented her first solo exhibition, Me, Myself and Jah, at Rawson Projects, New York, showing paintings that incorporate characters from Ralph Bakshi’s film Cool World (1992). These works explore themes of race, identity, appropriation, and—in canvases such as Heat Wave (2013)—the collapsing of painterly hierarchies, while revealing the artist’s burgeoning admiration for the democratic nature of cartoons.
#JamianJulianoVillani
Touch of Evil
Andrew Russeth situates Jamian Juliano-Villani’s daring paintings within her myriad activities shaking up the art world.
Jamian Juliano-Villani and Jordan Wolfson
Ahead of her forthcoming exhibition in New York, Jamian Juliano-Villani speaks with Jordan Wolfson about her approach to painting and what she has learned from running her own gallery, O’Flaherty’s.
Fairs, Events & Announcements
Panel Discussion
Talking Galleries New York 2024
Power Shift to Artists
Tuesday, April 9, 2024, 2:05–3:15pm
The Spiral, New York
newyork.talkinggalleries.com
Moderated by Artnews editor in chief Sarah Douglas, this panel discussion brings together artist Alvaro Barrington, curator and philanthropy advisor Kathy Halbreich, artist Jamian Juliano-Villani, and art advisory firm cofounder Allan Schwartzman for a conversation centering on the paradigm shift in power dynamics in favor of artists. It is part of Talking Galleries, a two-day conference in New York on April 8 and 9 that addresses a wide range of topics, including how galleries and public institutions are faring in a changing world, the emergence of artificial intelligence, sustainability, and the forces defining the art market today. One- and two-day tickets are available.
Jamian Juliano-Villani, Self-Portrait, 2023 © Jamian Juliano-Villani. Photo: Rob McKeever
Tour
Jamian Juliano-Villani: It
With the artist and Alvaro Barrington
Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 6pm
Gagosian, 541 West 24th Street, New York
Join Gagosian for a walkthrough of Jamian Juliano-Villani: It at Gagosian, New York, with the artist and her friend and fellow painter Alvaro Barrington. The pair—both of whom draw from contemporary culture and art history in their practices—will guide visitors through the mirage of distorted iconography found in Juliano-Villani’s new paintings, in which the artist pursues strategies of appropriation and reference.
Jamian Juliano-Villani, Sloppy Joe’s, 2024 © Jamian Juliano-Villani. Photo: Owen Conway
Talk and Book Signing
Jamian Juliano-Villani
Massimiliano Gioni
Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 6:30pm
Gagosian, 541 West 24th Street, New York
Join Gagosian for a conversation between Jamian Juliano-Villani and Massimiliano Gioni, artistic director of the New Museum, New York, inside the artist’s exhibition It, at Gagosian, New York. The pair will discuss Juliano-Villani’s painterly approach, which draws on a myriad of source material and artistic predecessors such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Ashley Bickerton, as well as her first major publication, Jamian Juliano-Villani: Selected Works, published by Gagosian this year. Designed by Philipp Hubert, the fully illustrated catalogue surveys paintings made from 2013 to 2024, including works from the exhibition, and features an introduction by Hans Ulrich Obrist and an essay by Domenick Ammirati. After the talk, the artist will sign copies of the book, which will be available for purchase.
Left: Jamian Juliano-Villani. Photo: Maris Hutchinson. Right: Massimiliano Gioni. Photo: Scott Rudd, courtesy New Museum