Brad Kahlhamer’s exuberant, animated paintings fuse visionary traditions of Native American art with expressionistic painting. Blending imagery from monumental American landscapes with an interest in downtown New York street culture, Kahlhamer extends a singular vision of real and illusory realms. During his teaching fellowship, Kahlhamer will be in conversation with Gary Garrels, Senior Curator of SFMOMA, where Kahlhamer’s masterwork Super Catcher (2014) is on view until October 30.
About the Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellowship
Established in 1998 by the generosity of the family of Richard Diebenkorn, the fellowship provides an opportunity for artists to both teach at the San Francisco Art Institute and have sufficient time and financial support to work in the studio, in alternating years through a residency at Headlands Center for the Arts.
Presented in partnership with Headland Center for the Arts.
Brad Kahlhamer (born 1956 in Tucson) is known for his multimedia practice, ranging from sculpture and painting to performance and music. He is based in New York City, working from his studio in Brooklyn. Early in his career, Kahlhamer toured with a rock band and designed packaging for Topps Chewing Gum—life experiences that continue to inform his painting practice. Major influences that appear throughout his work are multi-ethnic and street culture explorations. These “yonderings” have been a primary concern throughout his artistic career combining chronicle, myth, and fantasy. His work has been collected by SFMOMA; Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Denver Art Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, and Seattle Art Museum, among others. He is the recipient of prestigious awards in painting, including the Joan Mitchell Award and The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award.
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Gary Garrels is Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA, a position he assumed in September 2008. Previous appointments include chief curator and deputy director of exhibitions and public programs, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings and Curator of Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Elise S. Haas Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, SFMOMA; senior curator, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and director of programs, Dia Art Foundation, New York. Garrels has organized numerous exhibitions throughout his career. Most recently, he oversaw the installation of the painting and sculpture galleries at the newly expanded SFMOMA. He is the co-curator for BRUCE CONNER: IT’S ALL TRUE, the retrospective that will open at SFMOMA on October 29, 2016. He was co-curator of Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective, which opened at SFMOMA in 2011 after its initial presentation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. At the Hammer Museum, he organized Oranges and Sardines: Conversations on Abstract Painting (2008) and Eden’s Edge: Fifteen LA Artists (2007). At the Museum of Modern Art, he organized Brice Marden: A Retrospective of Paintings and Drawings (2006) and Roth Time: A Dieter Roth Retrospective (2004, co-organized with Schaulager, Basel, Switzerland). At SFMOMA, he organized Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective (2000); Inside Out: New Chinese Art (1999, co-organized with the Asia Society, New York); Present Tense: Nine Artists in the Nineties (1997); and Willem de Kooning: The Late Paintings, The 1980s (1995), among many other exhibitions and projects. He has written and lectured extensively about contemporary art in the United States and Europe and acts as an advisor to several major art foundations and organizations.
Press Coverage
Brad Kahlhamer, “Bowery Nation,” video, 2013
Holland Cotter, “Brad Kahlhamer: ‘A Fist Full of Feathers’,” The New York Times, November 14, 2013
Brad Kahlhamer, detail, Super Catcher, 2014, mixed media. 132 x 132 x 12 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.
