ASPEN ART MUSEUM PRESENTS
Florian Krewer: everybody rise
On View May 24–September 24, 2023

Florian Krewer, reviving the bear, 2022. Oil on canvas, 102 1/2 x 82 3/4 in (260.5 x 210 cm). Courtesy Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. © Florian Krewer

ASPEN, COLORADO (March 17, 2022) – The Aspen Art Museum is pleased to presentFlorian Krewer: everybody rise, the German painter’s first-ever solo museum exhibition and critical survey in the United States. Comprised of more than twenty paintings displayed throughout two of the museum’s galleries, the show will be in chronological order from 2017 to the present, tracing the significant shifts that have occurred in his practice over these years. The exhibition is curated by Matthew Higgs, Director and Chief Curator of White Columns, New York.

Nicola Lees, Nancy and Bob Magoon Director of the Aspen Art Museum, said, “The Aspen Art Museum is excited to present the work of Florian Krewer in his first solo museum exhibition in the United States.

The figurative paintings in this exhibition showcase a complex picture of our contemporary lives which, like the artist, we all have been evaluating through a new lens. Visitors here have the chance to engage with a body of work that examines our individual selves and the tensions so recently felt between our lockdown solitude and our public identities in an increasingly globalized world.”

Curator Matthew Higgs said, “I am thrilled that visitors will have the opportunity to explore recurring themes in Florian Krewer’s work while discovering the more recent emergence of a more intense and at times, almost-hallucinogenic palette in his paintings. Viewers will find an increasing sense of freedom and fluidity in the artist’s recent work, an unabashed shedding of inhibitions—painterly or otherwise—especially in their depictions of intimacy and desire, that is at once unexpected and profoundly seductive.”

The exhibition traces Florian Krewer’s (b. 1986 Gerolstein, Germany) career from 2017, the year of his graduation from Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, where he studied under the mentorship of Peter Doig. The artist lived and worked in Germany until his 2020 move to New York, coinciding with the global pandemic's onset. The five-year arc of work on view amplifies key moments and shifts in the artist’s practice, often made in relation to significant biographical events.

everybody rise takes its title from Krewer’s 2019 painting that shows a group of young people choreographed in a shared moment of embrace, set in an otherwise drab urban landscape. Ambiguity and uncertainty play a central role in this image, as in much of the artist’s work, where the narratives at play remain open while still conveying a sense of empowerment and potential.

The representation of individuals—in groups, pairs, or on their own—remains a recurring subject for Krewer and this exhibition. The artist’s work persistently explores the tensions between our private lives and our social identities.

The exhibition will travel to the M WOODS Museum in Beijing directly following the presentation at the Aspen Art Museum. The M WOODS exhibition will be curated by their Artistic Director Victor Wang and will include additional works by the artist.

ABOUT FLORIAN KREWER
Florian Krewer (b. 1986 Gerolstein, Germany) studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.  Solo exhibitions include boogie nights, Tom Dick or Harry, Düsseldorf; pinkflavor, TRAMPS, New York; Car Park Godiva, Michael Werner Gallery, London; Eyes on Fire, Michael Werner Gallery, New York and TRAMPS, New York; and Florian Krewer: ride or fly, Michael Werner Gallery, London.  The artist is a recent recipient of the Prix Jean-François Prat awarded by the Bredin Prat Foundation and was included in Es liebt Dich und Deine Körperlichkeit ein Verwirrter—Carina Brandes, Florian Krewer, Raphaela Simon at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf this year. Krewer lives and works in the South Bronx, New York.

ABOUT THE ASPEN ART MUSEUM 
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums in 1979, the Aspen Art Museum is a globally engaged non-collecting contemporary art museum. Following the 2014 opening of the Museum’s facility designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Shigeru Ban, the Museum enjoys increased attendance, renewed civic interaction, and international media attention. In July 2017, the Museum was one of ten institutions to receive the United States’ National Medal for Museum and Library Services for its educational outreach to rural communities in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley and its learning partnerships with civic and cultural partners within a 100-mile radius of the Museum’s Aspen location. 

Museum Hours 
Tuesday–Sunday, 10 AM–6 PM 
Closed Mondays 

Aspen Art Museum ADMISSION IS FREE courtesy of Amy and John Phelan. 

For the most up-to-date information on COVID-19 protocol, please refer to the Museum website. Visit the Aspen Art Museum online: aspenartmuseum.org  

Aspen Art Museum exhibitions are made possible by the Marx Exhibition Fund. General exhibition support is provided by the Toby Devan Lewis Visiting Artist Fund. Additional support is provided by the Aspen Art Museum National Council.