Donald Baechler: Paintings and Drawings 1981-1987

April 26 – June 12, 1988

Donald Baechler: Paintings and Drawings, 1981-1987 is an exhibition of twenty-seven paintings and drawings spanning a period of six years. From his earliest paintings of displaced modern objects (chairs, resorts, still lifes) floating quizzically on monochromatic grounds, Baechler has remained an inscrutable figure among young contemporary artists. Eschewing his photographically inspired images for an ongoing pursuit of more liberated drawing styles, the artist has sustained a paradoxically primal sophistication. Baechler’s paintings are, in many senses, accumulations: layers of previously painted imagery peek ghostlike through the elegantly collaged surfaces, as do the disturbing secrets of the anonymous “artists” whose drawings have been appropriated in the work.