Julian Schnabel, Untitled, 2007 Ink on polyester 166 x 106 inches (421.6 x 269.2 cm)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA.- Gagosian Gallery will present Julian Schnabel, on view February 21 - March 22, 2008. Art is not leisure; art is a utilitarian thing that people can use to find a way into their interior life. So many people thought that Marcel Duchamp was anti-painting but the fact was that this gave birth to all sorts of different things, whether they are called paintings or not. He created a hybrid that was more specific to our needs as contemporary people. --Julian Schnabel

Schnabel's mythic yet controversial career is rooted in his ability to morph and change using a vast alchemy of sources and materials composed and distributed across surface and support in defiance of the very notions of moderation, rationality, and order. His baroque attitude is embodied in audaciously scaled paintings that, over the course of time, have combined oil painting and collage techniques; classical pictorial elements inspired by historical art and neo-expressionist features; abstraction and figuration. Tackling appropriately big themes such as sexuality, obsession, homage, suffering, redemption, death, and belief, he has employed a startling range of materials including broken plates, diverse textiles such as Kabuki theater backdrops, tarpaulins, and velvet; thickly applied paint and viscous resin; digital reproduction; and a plethora of found images, names, and fragments of language.

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