Jean-Luc Mylayne: Reflection

Sprüth Magers is pleased to present ›Reflection‹, a solo exhibition of Mylayne’s work, on the occasion of Berlin Art Week. The majority of the images on view were conceived during a residency in Marfa, Texas, where Mylayne was drawn to the intense shades of blue found in the water and sky, and sometimes in the birds themselves. ›N°498 - 499, Janvier Février Mars 2007‹ (2007), a diptych depicting two birds observing an expansive landscape, is exemplary in this regard. Within its abrupt transitions from blurred to sharp detail, there is no single point of focus. Without a one-point perspective to organise the depicted landscape, the viewer’s eye is compelled to move searchingly through sudden shifts in spatial registers. This dynamic quality is achieved using lenses of varying focal lengths that are specifically built for the artist’s purposes, lending the image a certain painterly character.

Mylayne’s titles follow an invariable, archival logic: numbered chronologically and stating only the months and year of production, they make no reference to location or species. Time, they insist, is the fundamental dimension of his work, not the creatures within it. As critic Lynne Cooke has observed, he “abjures a romantic identification with his appealing subjects” while also refraining from casting human and animal as opposites within their shared domain.

[1] Lynne Cooke, ›Jean-Luc Mylayne: Between Contingency and Calculation,‹ in ›Jean-Luc Mylayne: Into the Hands of Time,‹ exh. cat. (Madrid: La Fábrica/Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Palacio de Velázquez, 18 November 2010–4 April 2011), 11–20, here 20.

Jean-Luc Mylayne (*1946, Marquise, France) lives and works in the world. Selected solo exhibitions include Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2020), Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, France, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland, Long Museum, Shanghai (all 2018–19), The Art Institute of Chicago, The Arts Club of Chicago, Lurie Garden, Millennium Park, Chicago (all 2015), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2010), Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2009), Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York (2007–09), Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico (2004, 2005, 2010), Musée des Arts contemporains, Grand-Hornu (2004), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1995), Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Saint-Étienne (1991). Significant group exhibitions include Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London (2020), S.M.A.K., Ghent (2017), 54th La Biennale di Venezia (2011), Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen (1998), 10th Biennale of Sydney (1996), Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich (1995).