With "Baden Baden Baden," the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden presents the first institutional solo exhibition by Nicole Eisenman in Germany.

Since their breakthrough in the New York art scene in the 1990s, American artist Nicole Eisenman (born in 1965 in Verdun, France) has been one of the most significant voices of their generation. Humor and a deep sense of reflection on history, art history, and pop culture define their large-format paintings and drawings. Nicole Eisenman is virtuosic in playing with elements derived from a diversity of periods. They cite Renaissance painting while alluding to modernist trends, accentuating these through their anti-aesthetics and a kind of in-your-face brashness. Meanwhile, they create an alloy of the political and the private, high art and subculture. From this admixture, fascinating, narrative works emerge with their uniquely idiosyncratic formal and technical rulesets – in whatever their choice medium.

First cherished as the insider tip for the artist’s artist, Eisenman has become one of the greats on the art market. With their spectacular fountain system for the Skulptur Projekte Münster (2017), they also established their name in Germany. For the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Eisenman’s exhibition primarily focuses on their sculptural work for the first time. On display are more than twenty sculptures from recent years, including twelve new sculptures and paintings created especially for »Baden Baden Baden«. Their preference for texture and the experimental play of different materials and their effects is also visible in Eisenman’s sculptural work: sometimes the bronze surfaces are highly polished; sometimes they appear coarse and dull. At others they even vibrate with color or scintillate with applied fabrics. The physiognomies of the sculptures are nuanced, abstracted or comically distorted. One of the sculptures spits water like an out-of-control fountain, another one puffs and sputters. In addition to the sculptures the exhibition will also showcase paintings, a video work, and a six-part series of wood reliefs by the artist.

A publication produced in collaboration with Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König Cologne will accompany the show, with texts by Hannah Black and Hendrik Bündge as well as photographs by Ryan McNamara.