Tanja Grunert and Klemens Gasser are pleased to present their second exhibition of Michael Alan.

Collapsible Anatomy is a celebration of the universal condition: frailty, beauty, delicacy, strength and change. Assembling unusual and unique visual connections, it’s a celebration of life at its strongest and most vulnerable state. This exhibition examines our deceptive frailty by exploring the relationship between emotional states and the physical body: how our feelings are reflected by our forms. The result is presented as an architectural, animated image. The combination of technique creates the illusion of volume and depth – by showing the inner workings, the guts and the worlds within us – everything that we can’t see. Collapsible Anatomy is about the ways in which the intangible influences physical reality,vice versa. 

These images are fragile support systems, counterweighted with vibrant bursts of passage hoops, splashes and connections that seem random but whose definitiveness is palpable.  Unseen lines, dashes and a dictionary of mark-making language moves and morphs across the plane, emboldened by various layers, media, linework and technique. Alan builds up the surface from some of the simplest materials, which form shapes from smudges and marks that are tied together by his signature line work. The line drawings are life in movement, captured in that second, they are the structure of and the root of the paintings. Body parts and their “order” are re-imagined, and working with layers, watercolor, line work, faces, shapes, worlds, language, movement, destruction, and an army of images, perceptible volume is rendered in 2-dimensional pieces. “I want to recapture what has been lost and update it with a splash of paint,” he said, in 2009, in the New York Times. Collapsible Anatomy reflects the major progression of his work since then. This exhibition shows the astronomical leaps and bounds of his concept, composition and evolution.

Like fragile lacework, each piece shimmers and recedes, leaving traces of itself while simultaneously commanding the plane. The complement and contrast between the monochrome line drawings and bright, furtive large works holds the key to Alan’s intentionally mysterious technique. The repetition of the lines is a language rather than a pattern. Collapsible Anatomy is delicate yet ferocious, but always, constantly, mutable. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

“[My goal is] To create a body of work that makes a lasting impact now and in the future.” Michael Alan, PMc Magazine

For Michael Alan, art is a combination of harmonious opposites, close observation, catharsis, a means of communication and a radical juxtaposition of dimensional elements. He challenges everything: concepts of figure, composition, media and movement, including his own. Exploring the ambiguity of time and history, Alan’s work focuses on crossbreeding and the relationship of destruction and creation.

Alan was born in the summer of 1977, during the New York City blackout. His work has been featured in 5 New York solo shows and over 200 group shows. His work has been discussed in over 200 publications, books and media sources, including the New York Times, NBC’s Today Show, Marie Claire Italia, Art+Auction, the New York Post, Fox Channel 5, the Village Voice, and Time Out New York.

In addition to his work as a solo artist, Michael is the founder and director of the Living Installation, where human beings are transformed into unique, living art objects.