Press release

The Baldwin Gallery is pleased to present its sixth show with Donald Baechler, featuring a new series of sculpture and works on paper. Known for his distinctive use of simple icons, Baechler’s layered compositions and lighthearted sculptures appeal to both casual audiences and contemplative viewers alike. Baechler’s subjects have included flowers, people, animals, machinery, architecture and cartoon imagery. With these elements Baechler examines our relationship to visual language as well as the cultural construction of representation. Throughout his prominent career, Baechler has remained committed to a universal, animated aesthetic with particular emphasis on quality of line, form and balance. His pieces typically include a central iconic image that interacts with assorted collaged and painted background elements to create a diverse compilation of icons, which Baechler uses to imply simple, childlike visual connections.

Donald Baechler was born in Hartford, Connecticut and studied at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, at Cooper Union, New York, and Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule in Frankfurt. He has work in the collections of many prominent museums and has been shown in both the United States and abroad, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Kunsthalle Basel, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in San Marino, Italy, The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

The Baldwin Gallery is also pleased to announce its second show of work by artist Ryan McGinness. Including paintings, works on paper, cyanotypes and sculpture, this body of work exemplifies McGinness’s fluid mastery of graphic style and language. Over the past decade McGinness has become renowned for his unique style that incorporates influences ranging from pop art to corporate logos and graffiti. Analogous to Baechler’s pieces, McGinness has developed a highly complex personal system of visual associations, allowing the viewer various readings and interpretations into the work. His invigorating, baroque compositions are the result of layers of hand-drawn designs and symbols that serve as modern hieroglyphs of complex expression, McGinness references the constant flood of information experienced in modern society.

An Andrew Carnegie scholar at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Ryan McGinness interned at the Andy Warhol Museum. Recently McGinness’s complex graphics have come into the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the MUSAC in Spain, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, and he was given the opportunity to create a full room installation at MoMA PS1.

Images are available upon request. Please call 970.920.9797 for further information.