Modern Mondays: Julian Schnabel

By: Casey Levine

Brief Bio: Born in October in 1951 in New York Moved to Texas when he was a child After earning a bachelor of fine arts degree

from the University of Houston, Schnabel toured Europe

He moved back to New York and started his painting career doing several odd jobs to support himself

His Style and Art Career: Enormous canvases filled with vibrant colors and bold strokes (some of his

paintings were done only with his fingers though!) sum up Schnabel's paintings.

His first exhibition was at the Mary Boone Gallery in 1980. It launched him into the New York art scene.

He gathered a following for his emotion-filled unusual works. By the time he exhibited his work in a show jointly organized by Boone and

Leo Castelli in 1981, he had become firmly established for his neo-expressionist paintings created on unique surfaces.

Schnabel's signature works, both abstract and figurative, have a base surface either black velvet or broken pottery (most common were ceramic plates).

His paintings were filled with raw emotion, the paintings contain an underlying edge of brutality while still having a youthful energy.

The monstrous canvases have elements of collage, but his arrival as an artist signified the return of painting to an art scene that previously revolved around conceptual and minimalist art.

Some Of His Works:

His Character and movie making career He was considered heroic, with his charismatic and somewhat eccentric personality-

he worked and even went to his exhibitions in pajamas, slippers, and robe. He made several movies, the most fasmous being ‘The Diving Bell and The Butterfly’

for which he won an award.

Interview with the artist http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/

asiapcf/01/15/talkasia/