Albert Oehlen Krefeld, Germany, b. 1954

Albert Oehlen is an influential contemporary painter known for his eclectic variety of techniques and imagery. He seamlessly transitions between abstraction and realism, offering a contemporary interpretation of traditional painting models and combining different mediums and techniques to create a new and independent genre.

From 1978 to 1981, Oehlen studied art at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg in Germany under the guidance of Sigmar Polke. During the early stages of his career, Oehlen’s artistic interests and associations encompassed both music and painting, reflecting the prevailing Neo-Expressionist aesthetic of the time. In 1976, along with Werner Büttner, he founded the “Liga zur Bekämpfung des widersprüchlichen Verhaltens” (League Against Contradictory Behavior), which expressed its artistic and political views through anarchist happenings.

Alongside Martin Kippenberger and Werner Büttner, Oehlen became associated with the Junge Wilde (Neue Wilde) movement, which emerged as a response to minimalism and conceptual art. He drew inspiration from Jörg Immendorff’s “Bad painting” style and Georg Baselitz’s Neo-Expressionism. In his “Malerei über Malerei” (Painting by Painting) series, Oehlen initially combined abstract and figurative elements. Towards the end of the decade, he fully dedicated himself to “post-abstract” painting, which deconstructed abstract art.