Duane Michals: Kaleidoscope
April 1 - 30, 2022
Duane Michals: Kaleidoscope
Duane Michals is 90.
In keeping with the creativity that permeates his career, Michals’ ideas, ambitions, and interests remain limitless. Filling the gallery and bursting with color and energy, Duane Michals: Kaleidoscope presents new sculptures, paintings on paper, film, and photographs.
Still frame from the film, 2022.
Michals’ work continues to innovate and surprise viewers, as well as himself. His curiosity pushes him to explore the possibilities of different mediums, allowing new boundaries of expression.
“Being uncomfortable is my comfort zone. You are not being creative if you already know what your next piece is going to be…I like doing what I’ve never done before.”
Tall, minimalist wooden sculptures contrast with those made of colorful geometric forms comprised of vignettes of found shapes and objects. Forcing us to take a closer look, the vignettes bring moments of intimacy to these large sculptures. In the films on view, 2022 and Xanadu, Michals also uses these sculptures, combining oscillating, prismatic colors with a moving backdrop that gives a sense of breath and fluidity to otherwise stationary objects.
Cavafy, 2022
Acrylic on wood on marble base
84 x 12 x 12 inches
Tolstoy, 2022
Wood on marble base
71 x 12 x 12 inches
Joyce, 2022
Acrylic on wood with marble base
122 x 24 x 12 inches
Kafka, 2022
Wood with marble base
51 x 17 x 20 inches
de Chirico, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
27 x 20 x 18 inches
Cornell, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
21 x 15 x 19 inches
Rousseau, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
25 x 19 x 10 inches
In his recent photographs, Michals examines contemporary issues through his characteristic use of tongue-in-cheek humor. Future Past Tense is Michals’ take on modern-day office culture where days, weeks, months, and years speed by while we remain consumed with work.
Fabulous aka Andy, 2021
Acrylic on paper
Michals wit and humor also pulses through his paintings on paper, which are saturated with colors, animated text, and pop-culture imagery. Building upon painted photographs begun in the 1980s, the dynamic application of paint here gives Michals an avenue of creative immediacy that cannot be found through photographic processes. Quick, energetic brushstrokes contrast to his carefully executed photographs and films.
These new works are bookended by black-and-white photography from Michals’ earlier years, including sequences and photographs with hand-applied text. Michals' handwritten text on the photographs adds another dimension to the images’ meaning and gives voice to his singular musings, which can be wise, humorous, or poignant.
Self Portrait as a Unicorn, 2022
Digital c-print
20 x 24 inches
Edition of 5
Duane Michals (b. 1932, McKeesport, PA) first made significant, creative innovations in the field of photography during the 1960s. In an era heavily influenced by photojournalism, Michals manipulated the medium to communicate narratives. Over the past five decades, Michals’ work has been exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, hosted Michals’ first solo exhibition in 1970. In 2008, Michals celebrated his 50th anniversary as a photographer with a retrospective exhibition at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece, and the Scavi Scaligeri in Verona, Italy. In 2019, The Morgan Library and Museum in New York exhibited a career retrospective of Michals' work The Illusions of the Photographer: Duane Michals at the Morgan. His work is currently being celebrated in the touring exhibition Duane Michals: The Portraitist, which originated at DC Moore Gallery in 2015 and traveled to The Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, CA (2018-2019), The Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY (2019), The Lowe Art Museum, Miami, FL (2021), and Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, Sweden (2022).
Over forty monographs of Michals’ work have been published, including Storyteller: Duane Michals (2014), Duane Michals: Empty New York (2018), and, most recently, Texas (2022).
Downloads
Self Portrait as a Unicorn, 2022
Chromogenic print
20 x 24 inches
Edition of 5
The Robert Storry, 2022
Five chromogenic prints
8 x 10 inches
Edition of 5
double click for additional images
The Reign of Pills, 2022
Chromogenic print
16 x 20 inches
Edition of 5
Future Past Tense, 2022
Chromogenic print
16 x 20 inches
Edition of 5
Tick Tock, Tick Tock, 2022
Chromogenic print with hand-applied text
16 x 20 inches
Edition of 5
The Tower of Babel, 2022
Chromogenic print
20 x 16 inches
Edition of 5
Still frame from film, 2022
Color film
5 minutes 32 seconds
Double click for additional images
Rousseau, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
25 x 19 x 10 inches
Cornell, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
21 x 15 x 19 inches
Watteau, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
25 x 11 x 12 inches
Gauguin, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
27 x 20 x 8 inches
Tolstoy, 2022
Wood on marble base
71 x 12 x 12 inches
The Mckeesport Pipe Palace, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
22 x 12 x 12 inches
Magritte, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
27 x 13 x 12 inches
de Chirico, 2022
Acrylic on wood with found objects on marble base
27 x 20 x 18 inches
Diderot, 2022
Wood on marble base
77 x 12 x 12 inches
Joyce, 2022
Acrylic on wood with marble base
122 x 24 x 12 inches
Cavafy, 2022
Acrylic on wood on marble base
84 x 12 x 12 inches
Rimbaud, 2022
Wood on marble base
95 x 12 x 12 inches
Proust, 2022
Wood on wood base
56 x 29 x 22 inches
Shakespeare, 2022
Wood on marble base
84 x 12 x 12 inches
Beckett, 2022
Acrylic on wood on marble base
119 x 12 x 12 inches
Baudelaire, 2022
Acrylic on wood on marble base
60 x 26 x 12 inches
Kafka, 2022
Wood with marble base
51 x 17 x 20 inches
Mallarme, 2022
Wood on marble base
107 x 12 x 12 inches
Borges, 2022
Acrylic on wood on marble base
105 x 14 x 12 inches
Stoppard, 2022
Wood on marble base
86 x 12 x 18 inches
The Fallen Angel, 1968
Eight gelatin silver prints with hand-applied text
5 x 7 inches (each)
Edition of 25
I Build a Pyramid, 1978
Six gelatin silver prints
5 x 7 inches (each)
Edition of 25
Chaos, 1998
Five gelatin silver prints with hand-applied text
5 x 7 inches (each)
Edition of 25
Andy Warhol, 1962
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
13 7/8 x 10 7/8 inches
Edition of 25
Robert Rauschenberg, 1964
Unique gelatin silver print collage
10 7/8 x 13 1/2 inches
Magritte Asleep, 1965
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
11 x 13 7/8 inches
Edition of 25
De Kooning, 1985
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
11 x 14 inches
Edition of 25
A Letter From My Father, 1975
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
8 x 10 inches
Edition of 25
Joseph Cornell, 1972
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
11 x 13 7/8 inches
Edition of 25
Morandi's Studio, 1985
Six gelatin silver prints with hand-applied text
5 x 7 inches (each)
The Unfortunate Man, 1976
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
10 7/8 x 13 7/8 inches
Edition of 25
Inappropriate Desire, 1986
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
11 x 13 7/8 inches
Edition of 25
The Nature of Desire, 1986
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
11 x 13 7/8 inches
Edition of 25
The True Nature of Man, 1972
Four gelatin silver prints with hand-applied text
8 x 10 inches (each)
Edition of 25
The Most Beautiful Part of a Man's Body, 1986
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
11 x 13 7/8 inches
Edition of 25
The Most Beautiful Part of a Woman's Body, 1986
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
11 x 13 7/8 inches
Edition of 25
The Illuminated Man, 1968
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
10 7/8 x 13 3/4 inches
Edition of 25
What the Mirror Saw, 2021
Acrylic and ink on paper
22 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches
Japonisma, 2021
Acrylic on paper
17 3/4 x 18 inches
Beauty, 2021
Acrylic and ink on paper
15 x 15 inches
How I was Not Murdered, 2021
Acrylic and collage on paper
22 5/8 x 22 1/4 inches
Vladimir, 2022
Acrylic on paper
20 x 22 ¼ inches
The Crying Poofster, 2021
Acrylic and collage on paper
22 1/2 x 22 inches
Mistaken Identity, 2021
Acrylic on paper
17 x 13 1/2 inches
Thinking and Writing, 2021
Acrylic on paper
19 1/4 x 18 3/4 inches
The House I Once Called Home, 2022
Acrylic on paper
22 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches
Da Da Didn't, 2021
Acrylic on paper
17 3/4 x 18 inches
Questions Without Answers, 2021
Acrylic on paper
23 x 21 inches
Eye Collect, 2021
Acrylic and collage on paper
18 1/4 x 17 inches
Fabulous aka Andy, 2021
Acrylic on paper
22 3/4 x 21 inches
The Boy Who Counted Stars, 2021
Acrylic on paper
23 x 22 inches