The world-renowned painters Carroll Dunham and Albert Oehlen are distinguished by their extremely independent and complex oeuvres. Both go to places beyond the academic discourse; both paint trees and are now being featured together in an exhibition for the first time.

Dunham and Oehlen, who see each other as ‘probably the best painter of trees in the world,’ experiment with the possibilities of painting within self-defined parameters. Nowhere is this more evident than in the common subject that has accompanied both artists for decades.

‘The tree becomes the cause of pure painting, the place of the tireless experiment, a test case for the still untapped potential of an ancient analogue medium. Ultimately, it is about the question of the abstraction of the world and for Dunham and Oehlen it is nothing less than the visual meaning of life in art.’ — Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Carroll Dunham / Albert Oehlen: Bäume / Trees at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (November 2019 – March 2020), and at Sprengel Museum, Hannover (June – October 2020).

English and German text.

Co-published with KH Düsseldorf.