Olaf Breuning (1970, Schaffhausen, Switzerland). Lives and works in New York.

After studying photography at Zuercher Hochschule der Kuenste (Zürich), Olaf Breuning stated working in multiple media. Artist creates videos, sculptures, drawings, and installations that investigate kitsch, appropriation, cliché and popular culture, and hint at a collective visual iconography.

Breuning’s works are usually comprised of bright colors and are influenced by a number of diverse and eclectic sources. His work humorously reflects his observation of human behavior together with cultural and political concerns. In ‘The Art Freaks’, a series of 2011 color photographs, Breuning painted nude models’ bodies to evoke the signature styles of influential 20th-century artists like Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Jackson Pollock and On Kawara, questioning our relationship to supposed “masterpieces”, as well as our mediated experience of them through reproductions.

Artist has participated in various prestigious public projects, including City Hall Park exhibition ‘Lightness of Being’ (2013), Happening of Station to station (2013), Miami Art Basel (2013). His Central Park installation ‘Clouds’ (2014), gave a highlight of color to the park, with its bright-blue aluminum clouds, held 35 feet above the ground.

“Well, I would like to be perfect, but I think art shows me that whatever technology I use, my personality pushes through and there we are… something is not perfect. I like that. We are finally human.”

Artist’s works are on display in famous museums and galleries worldwide:

AROS, Aarhus, Denmark
Fonds National D’art Contemporain, Paris, France
Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, Switzerland
Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark
Musée d’Art Moderne/Centre de Création Industrielle, Paris, France
Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen, Switzerland
Sammlung Falkenberg, Hamburg, Germany
UBS Collection, Zurich, Switzerland 
Sammlung Goetz, München, Germany
Saatchi Collection, London, UK