New York-based British artist Oliver Clegg has in many ways emerged as a fitting heir to this eclectic tradition of interdisciplinary practice, producing paintings, screen prints, mixed-media works, photography, found objects, sculpture, installation, text-based works, participatory projects and more besides. His materials and methods have involved everything from glass, wood and steel to neon, resin and concrete, weaving and casting to engraving and industrial manufacture. There are oblique nods to Rauschenberg’s combines in his paintings on old wooden furniture pan-els, to Kippenberger’s hotel drawings in his laser-cut birth certificates, to Holzer’s billboards and neon works in his Joshua Tree desert signage, to Gillick’s multi-coloured modernist constructions in his mobile furniture installation at Brooklyn Museum, or to Ed Ruscha’s text-on-image works in his paintings and screen-print hybrids. These references to – or perhaps strategies learnt from – senior figures known for working across mediums, are absorbed into the artist’s own practice both effortlessly and with great aplomb.
But beyond the impressive range of mediums and methods that the artist employs, his practice reveals a dense web of ideas and critical concerns that are equally polyphonic and multivalent. One might even go as far as to say that they are growing, as his practice evolves, into something really rather profound – a complex, sometimes amusing and playful yet often sincere and heartfelt exploration of ontological and existential notions of objecthood and matter, images and signs, language and communication, thought and action, creation and being.
Oliver Clegg has shown internationally since graduating in 2007 in Rome, Czech Republic, South Korea, Australia, London, New York, Hungary, Milan and has been included at the Prague, Busan and Venice Biennales. He has also been included in Museum shows at the Reykjavik Museum of Modern art, Dox Centre for the contemporary Art, The Saatchi gallery and The Busan Modern Art Museum amongst others. His first solo show in the US was at the Erin Cluley Gallery in Dallas, with a solo in 2018 at Rental Gallery - an exhibition of 150 paintings curated by Gagosian director Adam Cohen. Most recently he has had solo shows with Tennis Elbow at the Journal Gallery and been included group shows at Jeffrey Deitch and Raymond Duck. Anomie publishing has published a 400-page monograph presenting a selection of his work from the last 8 years that was launched at PS1 MOMA New York. His work is included in many private and public collections including Faisal Tama, the Getty family, Anita and Poju Zabludowicz, David Roberts, Charles Riva, the Maleki Family, CAA and Deutsche Bank.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019
Tennis Elbow
Journal Gallery, NYC
2018
Euclid’s Porsche
Rental Gallery, NYC curated by Adam Cohen
Everything should be O.K Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai
2016
Life is a gassssss
Erin Cluley Gallery, Dallas
2014
Games Triathlon Cabinet, Gowanus, NYC
2013
In the end its not the years in your life that count but the life in your years Kowal+Odermatt Projects
2012
I hope that we never die ... so do I Old Compton Close, London
2011 Berceuse Nolan Judin, Berlin
2010 SHIFT
Uno Su Nove, Rome
2008
A Knight’s Move
Freud Museum, London
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021
Exhibition 11
PM/AM, UK
2020
Good Pictures
Deitch Projects, NYC - curated by Austin Lee and Jeffrey Deitch
2018
More or Less
Sadie Coles HQ, London - curated by Darren Bader
The Cruellest Month Mother Gallery, Beacon, NY
2017 Dogs
Raymond Duck, NYC - curated by Oliver Clegg and Austin Lee
Small
Erin Cluley Gallery, Dallas
Animals
Charles Riva Collection, Belgium
2016
Animal Farm
S|2 Gallery, London
Whats up Soho, London
2015
WHISPERS Ronchini, London
Gotika
Palazzo Franchetti, 56th Venice Biennale
Drawings | Fridges
Greene Exhibitions, Los Angeles
Hashtag Abstract Ronchini, London
Re:Define
Goss-Michael Foundation, Dallas
2014
What Marcel Duchamp Taught Me Fine Art Society, London
The Future Can Wait Victoria House, London
2013 British Cut
Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong
White Light/White Heat 55th Venice Biennale
2012
Nightfall
Modem Museum, Hungary
Art of Chess
Saatchi Gallery, London
Summer Exhibition
The Royal Academy, London Honorary submission
The British Cut
Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong
Presented by the British Council for Art HK
Point of Entry
Ana Cristea Gallery, New York
2011
The Future Can Wait Truman Brewery, London
Some Domestic Incidents The Mac, Birmingham Some Domestic Incidents Prague Biennale
Polemically Small
The Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles
Art Brussels
Nolan Judin, Berlin
2010
Vanitas
Frieze Art Fair, London 10/01/2010
The Art of Chess
Bendigo Art Gallery, Melbourne
The Art of Chess
University of Queensland Art Museum, Australia
Busan Biennale Busan, South Korea Wonderland Assab One, Milan
The Art of Chess
Dox Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague
Peeping Tom
Vegas Gallery, London
The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place Project 176, London The House of Fairytales Millennium Gallery, St Ives EXHIBITIONISM: The Art of Display Courtauld Institute, London 2009
House of Fairytales – The Horn of Plenty Viktor Wynd Fine Art, London Distortion
53rd Venice Biennale
Presented by the Arts Council, England
PaperView
John Jones Project Space, London
On the Line
Crimes Town Gallery, London
The Art of Chess Reykjavik Art Museum
2008
In Drawing
Purdy Hicks Gallery, London
Artissima Unosunove, Rome
Don’t Stop Me Now Trolley Gallery, London
Something More, Something Less David Roberts Art Foundation, London
Art Brussels Unosunove, Rome
2007
Zoo Art Fair T1+2, London Art Basel
Galerie Michael Janssen, Berlin
Waste and the Lost World: Memento Mori with Alastair Mackie, Polly Morgan, Oliver Clegg
The Gallery, Soho
New British Painting and Works on Paper Salon 2007, London
Augury: New Works by Alastair Mackie and Oliver Clegg Tara Bryan Gallery, London
Selected collections:
Maleki Family Faisal Tamer David Roberts Zabludowicz Charles Riva Suzanne Van Hagen Richard Caring Nicholas Jones Deutsch Bank Neidich Family Anton Kern Vasilis Bacolitsas Francois Odermatt Robert Downey Junior Anne Hathaway Orlando Bloom John Krasinski Nicole Miller and Kim Taipale Darren Romanelli