Alex Katz: Dancing with Reality Solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Tübingen

New York artist Alex Katz is one of the most influential artists in contemporary American art. His minimalist, graphic paintings of women in hats and depictions of party scenes in bold colors made him world-famous in the 1970s as a chronicler of everyday American life, and today they are icons of art history.

Due to his distinctive, coolly minimalist style, with which he portrayed everyday life and his immediate surroundings, the artist, born in New York in 1927, was often associated with Pop Art. However, Alex Katz is more than that. He is a transcendental realist who, for 70 years now, has been translating experiences of reality into the medium of painting. People close to him, pets, or a tree in the street are thus plucked from the flow of time and find expression in his works with emotional detachment. Since the 1980s, in addition to portraits, Alex Katz has focused primarily on depictions of nature and cityscapes. With sensitive observation and a perception rooted in the body, he captures the magic of the moment and, not least, expresses the essence of things in an unadulterated, painterly way. Based on archetypal groups of works, the exhibition at the Kunsthalle Tübingen, developed in close collaboration with Alex Katz, offers a comprehensive overview of the artist's late work for the first time in many years. In addition to works from the 1990s, the exhibition will primarily feature his most recent series. In spontaneous and expressive works, Alex Katz now surrenders himself less to detachment and more to the sensual flow of painting, exploring the boundaries of abstraction with large-format gestural pieces.

Curator: Dr. Nicole Fritz