CHRISTOPHER WOOL (b. 1955)

Christopher Wool (American, b.1955) is an influential post-Conceptual artist, best known for his graphic, black and white word paintings. Wool grew up in Chicago, and relocated to New York City in the 1970s, where he enrolled in the Studio School with Abstract Expressionist painters Jack Tworkov and Harry Kramer. Wool eventually dropped out of school, and began experimenting with a new type of artistic process, using hand rollers to apply paint as a means of removing the painterly qualities from his work.

In the late 1980s, Wool began creating word paintings, which featured alliterative statements, or phrases with the vowels removed, laid out in gridded patterns. In 1988, Wool, along with fellow artist Robert Gober, created a collaborative exhibition at 303 Gallery in New York City, which included Wool’s famous text-based work Apocalypse Now, based on Francis Ford Coppola’s film of the same name.

During the 1990s, silkscreen became the artist’s preferred technique, and he often reused imagery to create multilayered compositions that had been transformed through the artistic process. More recently, Wool produced a series of works that he refers to as his “gray paintings,” large-scale abstractions that explore themes of creation and destruction.

Wool’s work has been exhibited at numerous institutions around the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, CA; the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig in Köln, Germany; the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in Paris, France; and at the Guggenheim in New York, NY. In addition, the art market for Wool’s work has experienced substantial growth over the past decade, with an increasing number of lots offered at auction.

Wool lives and works in New York City and Marfa, TX.

(artnet.com)