Die Gemälde von Whitney Claflin sind sowohl von der Dauer ihrer Entstehung als auch von Details aus dem Leben der Künstlerin durchdrungen. Ihre Abstraktionen sind eine Anhäufung bewusster und strategischer Markierungen, die im Laufe der Zeit entstanden sind und von Erinnerungen und Stimmungen zeugen. Grundlage für Claflins vielfältige Oberflächen ist ein robustes Vokabular im Umgang mit Farbe – während einige ihrer Gemälde die gezeichnete Linie nur minimal einsetzen, um den leeren Raum zu aktivieren, bilden andere eine Vielzahl von Gesten, um knisternde, atmosphärische Farbfelder zu bilden. Die Gemälde sind oft mit dem Schmuck der Künstlerin versehen, mit Zeilen ihrer Poesie geschmückt oder mit Markennamen versehen, die in ihrem täglichen Leben kursieren (Juul, Sour Diesel, Etnies, die obskuren Modelabels der Savers Secondhand-Läden). Diese Nähe zur persönlichen Identität wird in Claflins Gedichten, Performances und Installationen noch verstärkt. Ihre Ausstellungen sind passend zu ihrem Atelier mit bunten Weihnachtslichtern beleuchtet, mit Cointreau- oder Tanqueray-Flaschen ausgestattet, mit SoundCloud-Mixen unterlegt oder Schauplatz wöchentlicher Veranstaltungen, bei denen Claflin gegrillten Käse auf heißen Platten zubereitet. Die daraus resultierende Praxis schwankt zwischen einer Aktualisierung modernistischer Schemata auf der Leinwand – verzerrte Raster, unbewegliche Monochromie, getupfte Abstraktionen, die die impressionistische Linie verraten – und einer umfassenderen Übung in Zeitgenossenschaft, die auf die 1990er Jahre zurückgeht und ein Gemälde mit dem Lebensstil und dem Milieu in Verbindung bringt, das es kultiviert.

Whitney Claflin’s paintings are imbued with both the duration of their making and details of the artist’s lived experience. Her abstractions comprise a swell of deliberate and strategic marks plotted over time, testifying to memory and mood. Foundational to Claflin’s diverse surfaces is a robust vocabulary of paint handling—while some of her paintings minimally employ the drawn line to activate blank space, others accrue a variety of gestures to form crackling, atmospheric fields of color. Paintings are often accessorized with the artist’s jewelry, adorned with lines of her poetry, or emblazoned with brand names that circulate through her daily life (Juul, Sour Diesel, Etnies, the obscure fashion labels of Savers thrift stores). This adjacency to personal identity is reinforced in Claflin’s poetry, performances, and installations. Her exhibitions are lit with multicolored Christmas lights to match her studio, equipped with bottles of Cointreau or Tanqueray, scored by Soundcloud mixes, or host to weekly events in which Claflin makes grilled cheeses on hot plates. The resulting practice toggles between an update of modernist schemas on canvas—warped grids, deadpan monochromes, dappled abstractions betraying Impressionist lineage—and a broader exercise in contemporaneity dating to the 1990s—relating a painting to the lifestyle and milieu that cultivate it.

EDUCATION

2009

MFA, Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT

2005

BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

2004

Yale Norfolk School of Music and Art, Norfolk, CT

SELECTED SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2022

Duo exhibition with Rochelle Feinstein, Drei, Cologne, Germany

2020

ADD SHOT, Bodega (Derosia), New York, NY

By All Means You Can Have Two Halloweens, Drei, Cologne, Germany

2019

Galeria Half Moon, with Phung-Tien Phan, Drei, Cologne, Germany

Lo, Central Fine, Miami Beach, FL

2018

Infinity Pool, 576 Morgan Ave, Brooklyn, NY

2017

Just Disco, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY

2016

Have You Ever Met A Mime So Real?, The Lasting Concept at Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA

2015

Super Killer Instinct, Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI

2014

Crows, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY

2012

As Long As You Get To Be Somebody’s Slave, Too, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, NY

BITTE (collaboration with Brendan Harman), Terminal Projects, Brooklyn, NY

2010

Nothing to Blame But Gemini, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023

Brick Wall, Derosia at Bel Ami, Los Angeles, CA

Basic Fit, Office Baroque, Antwerp, Belgium

2022

Jahresgaben, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany

Tiere, Catherine Zeta/MD-Bar, Cologne, Germany

Wait, where did I leave my keys?, curated by Whitney Claflin, Drei, Cologne, Germany

Les Beaux Jours, Clearing, Brussels

2021

Landscape, Bodega (Derosia), New York NY

-CORE, Sandy Brown, Berlin, Germany

2020

Dear Delia, Shoot the Lobster, New York, NY

2019

Holly Village, Bodega (Derosia), New York, NY, curated by James Michael Cardoso-Shaeffer

Vista View, Galerie Buchholz, New York, NY, curated by Caleb Considine

2018

All’estero & Dr. K.’s Badereise nach Riva: Version B, Croy Nielson, Vienna, curated by Saim Demircan

Painting Now and Forever, Part III, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, NY

Soul is a Four Letter Word, Museum Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Cody Goebl

Communauté, EVAC, London, Ontario, Canada

2017

FOTG, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, NY

ak tu pięknie i niech cię nigdy nie zapomną, Dawid Radziszewski, Warsaw, Poland, curated by Rózsa Farkas

New Human Agenda, ANDNOW, Dallas, TX, organized by Cloud Burst Advisory & Eli Ping

Option to the Death Of Freedom, Casemore Kirkeby, San Francisco, CA

The world is waiting for the sunrise, TCB, Melbourne, Australia

Über ein Glas Wein, 67 Steps, Los Angeles, CA, presented by Carl Louie

The Enclosed Sun, Doyers, New York, NY, organized by Elisabeth Ivers and Olivia Shao

Works on Paper: 1813-2016, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, NY

2016

Mortal Sequence, Brennan & Griffin, New York, NY, curated by Heather Guertin

Zombie Formalism, ca. 1970/2016, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, NY

Real Fine Arts Presents, 809 Washington St, New York, NY

Works off Paper, SALTS, Birsfelden, Switzerland, Curated by Harry Burke

An Increasingly Desperate Man, Alter Space, San Francisco, CA, curated by Quintessa Matranga

2015

Some Gallerists, ML Artspace @ the duck, Berlin, Germany

The Peoples Biennial, 10-01 44th Rd, Long Island City, NY, curated by Bradley Kronz

Group Show, Real Fine Arts, New York, NY

Required Ubiquity, Raucci/Santamaria, Naples, Italy

The Subjects of the Artist, Michael Thibault, Los Angeles, CA, curated by Alex Bacon

2014

Perfume, Jan Kaps, Cologne, Germany

2013

The Return of the Icicle to the Evening at Le Potage De Madame Zazouf, Jack Chiles, New York, NY

Real Time and Outer Life, Young Art, Los Angeles, CA

2012

Steel Life, Michael Benevento, Los Angeles, CA2011 Of Certain Instability, Thomas Erben, New York, NY

2010

Handshakes, Thomas Erben, New York, NY

2009

The Open, Deitch Projects, Long Island City, NY

2007

Space is a Place, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR, curated by Rob Halverson

SELECTED PERFORMANCES AND READINGS

2022

Food & Spirits, with a performance by Maggie Lee and refreshments, Loong Mah, New York, NY

Food & Spirits, Drei, Cologne, Germany

2019

Wild Flesh Productions, Montez Press Radio, New York, NY

2017

Raised in a Jail, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY

IMPULSE, Lomex, New York, NY

2016

Asking for a Friend, 50 Taaffe Place, New York, NY

2015

IMPULSE, Artists Space Books & Talks, New York, NY

I Miss You Already 2, Mathew NYC, New York, NY

2014

IMPULSE, Doyers, New York, NY

Délire: Selected Readings of Antonin Artaud, Emily Harvey Foundation, New York, NY

2012

Tropismes Session III: Portrait of Dora, JACK, Brooklyn, NY

IMPULSE, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY

2011

Frangible, Blonde, the Van/ MAY OR MAY NOT, Venice Beach Boardwalk, Venice, CA

PUBLICATIONS

2022

Food & Spirits, Song Cycle, New York, NY

2019

Juliana Huxtable’s Interfertility Industrial Complex, Topical Cream, November 19, 2019

2018

A Synthesis of Intuitions, Adrian Piper at MoMA, Topical Cream, June 28, 2018

2016

Nancy Lupo: Parent and Parroting, Topical Cream, April 6, 2016

2015

Police Heads, Dasmundt, New York, NYSELECTED

https://rp-online.de/nrw/staedte/moenchengladbach/moenchengladbach-ausstellung-von-whitney-claflin-im-gewoelbekeller-von-haus-erholung_aid-105283603