Adam McEwen

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ADAM McEWEN
I'm So Tired, 2007
Chromogenic print

71 5/8 x 79 1/2 inches (181.9 x 201.9 cm)

Adam McEwen was born in Great Britain in 1965. He lives and works in New York. In 1987 he attended his BA course in English Literature at the Christ Church in Oxford. In 1991 he moved to the Valencia where he studied art at California Institute of the Arts. He was also the curator of various projects and exhibitions such as: "Interstate" (Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, 2005). His works are in the form of installation, sculpture and painting but also in mixed media. In his sculptures, paintings, and installations, Adam McEwen deploys a series of interventions that jolt us temporarily out of our indifference to the mass media over-exposure present in our daily lives. Although McEwen's text paintings situate his work in relation to artists such as Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, and Christopher Wool, his conceptual practice links him more closely with Andy Warhol. Like Warhol, McEwen excavates our obsession with a celebrity and tabloid dominated culture.

Adam McEwen wrote actual obituaries for The Daily Telegraph in London before he ever turned the genre into artwork, writing obituaries for still living and breathing celebrities like Kate Moss and Jeff Koons (he's done nine in total and has three more on the way). Seeing news in an art gallery of someone dead who is still so obviously alive is like creating a black hole on the wall-which seems to be an effect that McEwen, age 43, now living and working in New York, is particularly good at making. His monochromatic paintings with blobs of dirty, chewed gum stuck on the canvases (some named after German cities bombed in World War II) work like meditation pieces on expectations. McEwen's also been collecting text messages sent from friends and turning them into haiku-like riddles presented in graphite frames.

McEwen’s work has been included in numerous group shows including “Haunted,” the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); “Beg, Borrow and Steal,” Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2009); “The Reach of Realism,” MoCA Miami (2009); “Into Me/Out of Me,” PS1 / MOMA, New York; and the 2006 Whitney Biennial. He curated “Fresh Hell” at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, as the 2010 edition of the Carte Blanche series.