Mary Heilman & David Reed.
Two by Two March 6, 2015 - October 11, 2015
Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of the Present

The New York-based artists Mary Heilmann (*1940 in San Francisco) and David Reed (*1946 in San Diego) are showing their works Two By Two Dialog. Around 40 paintings and installations created since the 1970s are presented.

Both artists are key figures in American painting. In the early 1970s they re-established abstract painting beyond its traditional boundaries between figuration and abstraction and embraced the narrative and emotional.

The trained sculptor Mary Heilmann explores gaps and blind spots in the worldview of modernism. She sets the tone of individual memory not only in dialogue with works and stylistic principles of abstraction, but also through the choice of her picture titles. Heilmann's formal vocabulary is based on Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. The Californian attitude to life still resonates in the works of both artists today.

The aura of Hollywood and the fascination with the imagery of film are particularly noticeable in David Reed's works. Reed's concern is to explore the “identity of painting”. His works reflect the examination of different art tendencies as well as an enthusiasm for the painting of bygone eras. The main characteristics of his oeuvre are the gestural movements, a high-contrast choice of colors and the extremely elongated formats.

For Two By Two, Mary Heilmann and David Reed enter into a temporary bond for the first time in a joint exhibition in order to explore complementations, tensions and similarities between their two artistic positions.