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Almine Rech

Julian Schnabel Jack Climbed Up the Beanstalk to the Sky of Illimitableness Where Everything Went Backwards

Oct 19 — Dec 19, 2015 | Paris

Inquire about the exhibition: inquiries@alminerech.com

I don't think I will soon forget the moment when, in 1981, a graduate student in art history in London, I walked into the now legendary exhibition: New Spirit in Painting at the Royal Academy. There I stood, transfixed, in front of the first Plate Paintings I had seen by Julian Schnabel. It felt like a weird experience, and an utterly contradictory sensation took ahold of me: it first felt like an aesthetic slap on the face, immediately followed with a flush of euphoria that was overtaking me. I wanted to cry, and laugh, at the same time. How many works of art could possibly produce such an effect? Ultimately, laughter took over—this was a celebratory laugh that came as a deep relief,  and a hugely liberating experience—an opening, or what Heidegger could have called a 'clearing.' Something truly out of the ordinary had just happened: There was an artist who blatantly dared all, who seemed to have no fear, who did things that seemed to have no meaning, no relation to the past, and certainly no signs of reverence towards history, even though, paradoxically, Schnabel's pictorial practice has long been nurtured through and though by his deep knowledge of history. But at that particular moment, at the Royal Academy, his work stood up in your face with the cogency, the inevitability of a towering monument…

Press release

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Selected artworks

  • Julian Schnabel,                                      Untitled, 1990

    Julian Schnabel Untitled, 1990

    Oil on white tarpaulin
    274,3 x 365,8 cm

  • Julian Schnabel,                                      Untitled, 1990

    Julian Schnabel Untitled, 1990

    Oil on white tarpaulin
    340,4 x 480,1 cm

  • Julian Schnabel,                                      Untitled, 1990

    Julian Schnabel Untitled, 1990

    Oil on tarpaulin
    340,4 x 480,1 cm

  • Julian Schnabel,                                      Virtue, 1986

    Julian Schnabel Virtue, 1986

    Banner on tarpaulin
    318,8 x 473,7 cm

  • Julian Schnabel,                                      Untitled, 2012

    Julian Schnabel Untitled, 2012

    Inkjet print, oil, ink on polyester
    223,5 x 243,8 cm

  • Julian Schnabel,                                      Untitled, 2012

    Julian Schnabel Untitled, 2012

    Inkjet print, oil, ink on polyester
    223,5 x 243,8 cm

  • Julian Schnabel,                                      Untitled, 2012

    Julian Schnabel Untitled, 2012

    Inkjet print, oil, ink on polyester
    223,5 x 243,8 cm

  • Julian Schnabel,                                      Untitled, 2015

    Julian Schnabel Untitled, 2015

    Inkjet print, ink, spray paint, gesso on polyester
    182,9 x 274,3 cm

  • Julian Schnabel,                                      Tour of Hell II, 2008-2015

    Julian Schnabel Tour of Hell II, 2008-2015

    Inkjet print, spray paint on polyester
    304,8 x 226,1 cm

Videos

  • In conversation: Julian Schnabel and Joachim Pissarro