Maureen Paley is pleased to present the first solo exhibition at the gallery by American artist Stephen Prina.
The exhibition will include works from the series Exquisite Corpse: The Complete Paintings of Manet, in which Prina
indexically draws on the complete oeuvre of Impressionist painter Edouard Manet. Characterised by the appropriation
of other artists works, Prina has developed a series of lasting projects that embrace a multi-faceted system in which
personal and art-historical narratives augment one another.
Concerned with principles of translation, Prina, in his realisation of these works considers the critical implications of
artistic quotation and historical cross-referencing. Continually addressing the relationship between artist and audience
and questions of cultural and institutional formatting, Prina’s methodology straddles installation, painting, drawing,
film, performance and music.
He will also give a talk in the Culture Now series at the ICA London on Friday 20 April, 1.15pm.
Stephen Prina was born in Galesburg (Illinois, USA) and lives and works in Los Angeles and Cambridge
(Massachusetts, USA). Prina is a professor at Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and has
taught at a number of institutions in the US and France.
Solo exhibitions have included As He Remembered It, Secession, Vienna; Carve Out a Space of Intimacy, Capitain
Petzel, Berlin, 2011; Modern Movie Pop, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, 2010; The Second Sentence
of Everything I Read Is You, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaeno, Seville; Stephen Prina, Bergen Kunsthall,
Bergen; Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, 2009; The Second Sentence of Everything I Read is You, Staatliche
Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden, 2008; The Second Sentence of Everything I Read is You: Mourning Sex,
Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, 2007; The Second Sentence of Everything I Read is You: The Queen Mary, Friedrich
Petzel Gallery, New York, 2006; Vinyl II, Cubitt, London, 2004; To the People of Frankfurt am Main: At Least Three
Types of Inaccessibility, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main, 2002; It was the best he could do at the moment,
Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1992.
Selected group exhibitions include Von realer Gegenwart, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf, 2010; KunstFilm
Biennale, Filmforum in the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 2009; Time Crevasse, Yokohama 2008: International Triennale
of Contemporary Art, Yokohama; Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2008; Oh Girl, it’s
a Boy!, Kunstverein München, Munich; Who’s afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue? Positionen der Farbfeldmalerei,
Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Museum of Contemporary Art, North
Miami, 2007; Los Angeles, 1955–1985, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Make Your Own Life: Artists In and Out of Cologne,
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and The Power Plant, Toronto, 2006; Adorno.
Die Möglichkeit des Unmöglichen, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main, 2003; in capital letters, Kunsthalle
Basel, Basel, 2002; Beau Monde: Toward a Redeemed Cosmopolitanism, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, 2001; Departures:
11 Artists at the Getty, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2000; Crossings: art to see and to hear, Kunsthalle
Wien, Vienna, 1998; Kontext Kunst. The Art of the 90s, Neue Galerie im Künstlerhaus, Graz, 1993; Allegories of
Modernism: Contemporary Drawing, Museum of Modern Art, New York; documenta IX, Kassel, 1992; Jenny Holzer,
Stephen Prina, Mark Stahl, Christopher Williams, De Appel, Amsterdam; Gewad, Ghent, 1994; Striking Distance,
Museum of Contemporary Art/The Temporary Contemporary, Los Angeles, 1998; Investigations: Probe- Structure-
Analysis, The New Museum, New York, 1980.
Prina’s music projects have ranged from a solo piano performance at the Whitney Biennial, New York in 2008 to
working extensively with The Red Krayola.
For further information please contact Vera Hild: [email protected]
