In his studio in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood this fall, Hernan Bass is painting the largest work of his career, the 9-by-21-foot Conceptual Artist 36, considered the pinnacle of the "Conceptualist" series. This is a series of 35 portraits he began in 2021 under the theme of "Conceptualists" and is on display at the Bass Art Museum in Miami.
As Bass revealed in the interview: "It's a really interesting series because in a sense, I can basically pretend to be another artist, and if you don't even like what the artists are doing, it's not my fault because it's their work, not mine." ”
In a sense, "The Conceptualists" marks the return of Bass, and this exhibition is a fairly complete new exhibition of his work since the 2002 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Snitzer, the gallerist who discovered Bath 20 years ago, said, "My memory is that he never flinched, never stopped, never continued to evolve. ”
Installation view of Hernan Bass's "Conceptualists", Bass Art Museum, Miami.
The new exhibition focuses on "conceptualists".
For more than 20 years, Bass's painting charm is different from that of other artists, and for more than 20 years, those seemingly figurative figures and symbols are hidden in uncertain, designed scenes, and fables and stories, loneliness and illusion convey a sense of visual strangeness, allowing people to wander between reality and fiction.
Each piece in the "Conceptualists" series depicts a fictional conceptual artist who is obsessed with and pursues eccentric creations, humorously challenging the boundaries and notions of conceptual art itself. Inspired by the 2018 micro-film "Waiting for the Artist", Marina Abramovich, played by Cate Blanchett, is "one of the funniest things Bass has ever seen in his life".
Hernan Bass "The Conceptualist: volii" exhibition view, Standing Wood Gallery, New York.
The series, which debuted last autumn at a solo exhibition at the Victoria Miró Gallery in London, held its second exhibition at the New York space of Standing Wood Gallery in May.
This solo exhibition at the Bass Art Museum in Miami is the artist's largest museum-quality exhibition to date in Miami, where he was born and spent most of his life.
Installation view of Hernan Bass's "Conceptualists", Bass Art Museum, Miami.
For Bass, the "conceptualist" is a continuation of artistic practice, and it is also a breakthrough: the delicate teenagers in the picture are still on the verge of adulthood, and their emotions are less anxious and burnout. Under the theme of the "conceptualists", their unusual interests are no longer hidden in the shadows and enter the stage of self-acceptance. Instead of relying on existing narratives – whether it's the Hardy Boys series or the 19th-century decadent movement writer Joris-Carl Huesman's ** – he draws inspiration directly from his own head.
Hernan Bass, "Concept Artist
The Conceptualist "was not a complete portrait, he depicted realistic scenes with highly delicate brushstrokes, creating a certain drama in a flat, straightforward depiction." When the curtain is lifted, the creator behind everything around him is revealed.
In this new work, which is essentially a self-portrait, a conceptual artist is in his studio, surrounded by sketches and props with elements of the early "conceptualists", in unrealistic compositions of the picture. "He specializes in painting fake portraits of conceptual artists who never existed. Bass said of the piece, titled Concept Artist 36.
Hernan Bass, "Concept Artist
Other conceptual artists are carving ice-filled objects, making roadside monuments for hitchhikers, chewing gum every waking day, or gilding the leaves of dying houseplants ......They are free to engage in unique activities, and Bath provides sustenance and meaning to their lives.
Hernan Bass, "Concept Artist
Concept Artist 19 (as a kid in the '80s, whenever he felt lost, he would put his own Polaroid portrait in a familiar place), "I used these tropes in the language of concept art to play with the title and make sure people could understand the work," says Bass, "and that's another benefit of the whole series being on display in the museum, with labels ...... next to each painting."”
Hernan Bass, "Concept Artist
Given that the opening coincided with Art Basel Miami, Bath laid out the venue to resemble an art fair site, forming a connection to the physical space of Art Basel a few blocks away.
Hernan Bass, "Concept Artist
Hernan Bass esthetic
Growing up in Miami, Bath was fascinated by supernatural romance and mystery from an early age. If at the beginning of his creation, he used his brush to advocate for the LGBTQ community, now he has reached a reconciliation and lives with himself.
Hernan Bass in the studio, 2017.
Bass is known for his intricate narrative paintings. The whimsical wonderland constructed on canvas is not only born out of individual experience, self-interest and obsession, but also inspired by art history and early literary writings, where classical poetry, religious tales, myths and literature are woven together and reimagined by Bass to be reborn in the contemporary era.
Wild imagination and gothic sensibility built on a childhood spent in the woods of northern Florida, where Bass's parents moved from Cuba. He recalled, "It was normal for me to talk about Bigfoot, UFOs and ghosts. "As an admirer of conceptualism, while playing the role of a conceptual artist, he is obsessed with the kind of poetic, eccentric narrative painting he has cultivated over the course of his 20-plus years of career.
Hernan Bass: Choose Your Own Adventure", installation view at Yuz Museum, 2021 Photo: Wang Wenlong.
Bass is one of the most popular post-70s artists in recent years. His exhibitions have landed in many museums and art machines around the world, including Charles Thatch, the most influential collector in the United Kingdom, Adam Sandy, a first-class dealer in New York, and Bernard Arnault, a French luxury goods tycoon.
Hernan Bass, "The Boy Who Prepared Well (or the Approaching Glacier)".
183×152.4cm ink, acrylic, silver foil, linen, 2010
Sold for HK$9.81 million at Christie's Hong Kong 2022 Spring Sale.
Hernan Bass, "The Bat and the Barn Bridge".
213 x 152.5 cm mixed media linen 2008
Sold for HK$11.25 million at Christie's Hong Kong Autumn 2022 auction.
Bath cooperates with galleries such as Standing Wood and Perrotin, and enjoys a good reputation and collector base in the primary market. In 2021, Bass's solo exhibition "Choose Your Own Adventure" was exhibited at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, laying the groundwork for his entry into the eyes of Asian collectors. A year later, he set two new auction records. At Christie's Hong Kong in May, "The Boy Who Was Prepared (or the Approaching Glacier)" sold for HK$9.81 million, and six months later, "The Dawn of Modernity" sold for HK$21 million at Huayi International in Hong Kong.
Hernan Bass, The Dawn of Modernity
Acrylic on canvas on birch frame 2134 × 182.9 cm × 3;Overall 2134 × 548.6 cm 2016
Sold for HK$21 million at the 2022 Autumn Auction of Hong Kong Huayi International.
Collectors' appreciation of works of art is often defined by collectivity, and the collective power of millennial collectors has forced the art market to create new trends. Perhaps the reason for the popularity of Bass's work is that it responds to the most popular figurative style of the time, with its large scale, and the colorful details and storytelling that pour into each painting transform into a magical visual experience that attracts people to stop and resonate.