Chloe Piene

Chloe Piene is a visual artist known primarily for her drawing. On drawing, Piene says "I have never questioned drawing and it's primacy for me ... it is the first thing, and it is the final thing."[1] Chloe Piene was born in the United States and received her BA in Art History at Columbia University and her MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London.^[1][2]

Piene is known widely for her delicate and penetrating drawings, which are typically anchored in the body, as well as Video, Sculpture, and Performance. Her drawings are described as "brutal, delicate, figurative, forensic, erotic, and fantastic."[2] The drawings are influenced and supported by her education in Art History especially Northern Renaissance Art. Her work has made various and diverse associations with prisoners, love letters, neolithic burial schema [3], failure, history, heroic transformation, and epic sagas such as the Finnish Kalevala and Poland's national epic The Dziady.^[3][4]

Piene's work is often paired with artists such as Egon Schiele, Louise Bourgeois, Wilem de Kooning, Juul Kraijer, Joseph Beuys, Samuel Beckett, Günter Brus, Antonin Artaud, Cecily Brown, Tracey Emin, and Hans Bellmer.

Death and the Maiden (1517) by Hans Baldung Grein, is a reference seen throughout Piene's work. "Yet with Piene, the two mythological figures melt together, since in her charcoal drawings we encounter not Death and the Maiden, but rather the Maiden as Death."[4]

In her videos she exhibits a sense of darkness, foreboding, a chasm of power or fear. They are described as "less a narrative than a way to capture the sensation and psychology of unfulfilled wanting."[5] The Galerie Barbara Thumm says this about her video work, "In her videos, Piene twists the cinematic power of sound, voice and narrative. Through the use of simple techniques like the slowing down of the sound and the image, she forces the viewer to engage at a more subversive and dark level. Extreme states such as isolation and fear are enhanced by strong chiaroscuro images, intense soundtracks and solitary performances." [6] In her Video Blackmouth shown at the Whitney Biennial "is a looped sequence of dramatically slowed-down footage of a mud-spattered young girl thrashing and howling in the night. 'The idea was that she was coming out of the grave, but as it turns out she is trying to get back in'"[7]

The motifs of death and beheading appear often in her sculptures. most of which consist of metal that appears melted or squashed against skulls. They employ the use of steel, iron, and plasticine, or wax to cast.

In Pienes show Familienaufstellung (2016) writer Ingeborg Ruthe says "Is this a Greek Tragedy? The gallery opens like a stage. Black silk sweeps across the floor. Three figures rise from a sea of mourning, to the left and to the right, symbols of death and silent lament." Where the figure is detailed in line and in her drawings, her sculpture shows an underside to how she views the figure. In Familienaufstellung the three cloaked forms offer up a place between void and a heady awareness of body. The show was both drawing and sculpture, each affecting the other. An Important motif though these works is "drawing is sculpture and sculpture is drawing!" [8]

Chloe Piene’s show at Marianne Boesky Gallery in 2000 included drawings, video and a live performance in which Nine former-convicts and nine women read from correspondence Piene had with a prisoner serving a 99 year sentence, the performance stemmed from her publication entitled “Lovelady, Texas”.[9]

To Serve (2014) Piene and United States Special Operations commander hold a live conversation before a private audience in New York. "The footage comes from cameras strapped to the helmets of soldiers. The video comes to life forcefully through the powerful sound that echoes through the gallery and the suggestive movements in the landscapes on the screen."[10]

In 2016, Piene collaborated with Diethard Leopold on Familienaufstellung. Known associates and strangers played family members, both living and dead.[11] Matthew Barney played her brother, and actress Petra Morzé of the Vienna Burgtheater, played her mother.

Other performances include 11 Octogenarians, which premiered at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Belgium in 2012.[12]

Exhibiting internationally, Piene's shows include: Selections from The Guerlain Collection at the Centre Pompidou and the Albertina, Vienna, 2019;^[5] Reloaded, in which Piene paired with Egon Schiele as part of his Centennial at the Leopold Museum, Vienna, 2018;^[6] HB + CP - Hans Bellmer and Chloe Piene at Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, 2008;^[7] Bodies of Desire: Works on paper by Willem de Kooning and Chloe Piene at the Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, 2007;^[8] and the 2004 Whitney Biennial.^[9][10]

Her work is part of national and state collections worldwide including the following:

Her work has been reviewed by The New York Times, Frieze, Le Figaro,^[19] Los Angeles Times, BOMB Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Berliner Zeitung, among others. Books include Vitamin D, Phaidon; Drawing People, The Hayward Gallery, London; Les Maitres du Desordre The Musée Quai Branly, Paris; A Passion For Drawing, Selection From The Guerlain Collection and Drawing Now, The Albertina Museum, Vienna.

• Dexter, Emma (2005). Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing. Phaidon Press. ISBN 9780714857138.
• Malbert, Roger (20 April 2015). Drawing People: The Human Figure in Contemporary Art. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500291634.
• Hell, Bertrand; Jacomijn Snoep, Nanette; Adam-Couralet, Sandra; de Loisy, Jean (2012). Les Maitres du Desordre. Paris, France: QUAI BRANLY. ISBN 9782357440562.
• Albrecht Schröder, Klaus; Lahner, Elsy (4 February 2020). A Passion for Drawing: The Guerlain Collection from the Centre Pompidou. Prestel. ISBN 9783791359427.
• Germann, Martin; Lahner, Elsy (October 2015). Drawing Now. Hirmer Publishers. ISBN 9783777424347. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
• Schwabsky, Barry (1 August 2008). Chloe Piene: Carré d'Art - Musée d'Art Contemporain de Nîmes. Carré d'Art-Musée d'Art Contemporain de Nîmes. ISBN 9782907650335. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
• Dzierzbicka, Agnieszka; Bakic, Josef; Horvath, Wolfgang (1 October 2008). In bester Gesellschaft: Einführung in philosophische Klassiker der Pädagogik von Diogenes bis Baudrillard. Loecker Erhard Verlag. ISBN 978-3854095002.

• Chloe Piene Official Site
• "Grand flourishes of paint" by Christopher Knight, The Los Angeles Times, May 2015 via pressreader.com
• A Passion For Drawing: Selections from the Guerlain Collection at The Pompidou, The Albertina Vienna
• Fragmented Fetishes: Monstrosity and Desire In Women's Contemporary Time-Based Art by Jenny Keane
• In bester Gesellschaft Ausgewählte Erwerbungen des Berliner Kupferstichkabinetts
• Exhibition // Chloe Piene at Galerie Barbara Thumm
• List of Whitney Biennial artists § 2004
• Chloe Piene on MoMa.org
• Chloe Piene on Le Centre Pompidou