Gary Kuehn

Gary Kuehn (born 1939, Plainfield, New Jersey) is an American artist best known for his Postminimal sculptures and Black Paintings.

Gary Kuehn, studio view with Mattress Piece, 1969

Life

Born to a working-class family, Kuehn's experience working as a steel worker and a roofer in the 1950s and 60’s were formative in the development of his work, and shaped his relationship to the physicality of raw materials.^[1] He received his MFA in 1964 from Rutgers University, where he went onto become tenured faculty and department chair in Fine Arts.^[2]

Work

Kuehn's work was included in the groundbreaking exhibitions Eccentric Abstraction curated by Lucy Lippard in 1966 and When Attitudes Become Form curated by Harald Szeemann in 1969. His work is known for its fluid use of materials that undermined the psychology of dominant Minimal Art practices.^[3] Although his work is most often classified as Minimal, Postminimal or Process Art^[4] his work defies boundaries and can be difficult to classify. The unifying theme throughout his discursive practices is a tension between forms as evident in his Black Paintings and Melt Pieces.^[5] In 1992 when he received the Francis J. Greenburger Foundation Award, George Segal wrote about the “rule-breaking” in Kuehn’s work and said, “Artists [like Kuehn] who don’t fit comfortably into art historical categories have a terrible time.”^[6] Kuehn's refusal to produce trademarked work explains why he was "unfairly sidelined by history" according to art historians such as Thomas Crow,^[7] although his work has now become accepted in the art historical canon with artists such as Bill Bollinger and Keith Sonnier.

His first museum retrospective opened at the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein in September 2014.^[8] He is represented by Haeusler Contemporary Gallery in Munich and Zurich.

Public collections

• Albertina, Vienna, Austria
• Bonn Städtisches Kunst Museum, Bonn, Germany
• Bristol-Meyers Squibb Corporation
• Continental Corporation, New York, New York and Cranbury, New Jersey
• Denver Museum of Art, Denver, Colorado
• First Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany
• Kröller-Müller, Otterloo Museum, Germany
• Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland
• Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein
• Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany
• Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany
• Mark Twain Bancshares, St. Louis, Missouri
• Museum of Modern Art, Quito, Ecuador
• Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
• Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
• Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany
• Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich
• Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany
• Museum Moderner Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany
• Museum Moderner Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany
• Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, Austria
• Neuer Berliner Kunstverein
• Neues Museum Nürnberg, Germany
• New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey
• Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey
• Sammlung Fried, Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany
• Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München
• Städtisches Museum, Leverkusen, Germany
• Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany
• Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Von Der Heydt Museum, Germany
• Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
• Weatherspoon Art Gallery, U.N.C., Greensboro, North Carolina
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York

References