Juan Iribarren
Henrique Faría Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Juan Iribarren. In these recent works, he continues to absorb and transform a carefully chosen repertoire of modern and contemporary referential painting models, notably American and European, into a uniquely personal, optically-driven and series-based form of abstraction.
Juan Iribarren, (Caracas, 1956), counts among the leading contemporary painters in his native country, Venezuela. Trained in the U.S. and France, Iribarren has enjoyed an “artist’s artist” reputation, finding wide recognition among key Latin American collectors and artists, as well as influencing younger painters.
Although painting is the central medium of Iribarren’s artistic production, his body of work includes drawing, gouache, etching and photography, usually building up a series of works to displace the problems of painting onto differential media. Iribarren has systematically investigated major color based modes of painting, from Matisse, Alejandro Otero and Diebenkorn, to Richter, Per Kirkeby, De Keyser and Bernard Frize, critically allowing them to inform his own production.
The core of Iribarren’s most recent work presents itself as a seemingly impossible and contradictory juxtaposition of geometry, the luminous and the atmospheric. In spite of continuing his systematic observation of the changing values and colors in his studio, Iribarren technically proceeds against the grain of an atmospheric, retinal kind of painting. Although each work included in this show represents an iteration of a single, more or less similar, visual setting observed on the walls and windows of his New York studio, Iribarren subverts each of them by repeatedly juxtaposing a slightly shifted version of the composition, at times turning the canvas upside-down, and executing brightly colored, wet on wet, sweeping brushstrokes, thus creating dense, unexpected contrasts between field and gesture. It is the combination of these systematic technical solutions over a basic, colorful atmospheric compositional architecture that makes Iribarren’s work a unique and radical example in today’s Latin American painting.
Born in Caracas, Venezuela
Lives and works in New York
Université de Paris I, (Panthéon-Sorbonne), Paris, France
D.E.A., 1983
Maîtrise d'Esthétique, 1982
American University, Washington, D.C. BFA, 1978
2009 Juan Iribarren. Obra reciente. Faría+Fábregas Galería, Caracas, Venezuela
2006 Juan Iribarren. Dibujos y Fotografías. Galería Spazio Zero, Caracas
2005 Galería Clave, Feria Iberoamericana de arte, Caracas
2004 Juan Iribarren: Recent Works. Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX
2002 Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX
2001 Juan Iribarren, Obra reciente. Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas
1998 Juan Iribarren, Small Paintings. GAGA, New York, NY
1997 Sala Alternativa, Caracas
1994 Sala Mendoza, Caracas
1993 Obra reciente, Galería Clave, Caracas
1991 Galería Clave, Caracas
1989 Juan Iribarren, Pinturas. Galería Clave, Caracas
1986 Galería de los Espacios Cálidos, Caracas
2011 The Armory Show. Faría+Fábregas Galería, New York, NY
Feria Arte BA, Faría+Fábregas Galería, Buenos AIres, Argentina
Pinta Art Fair, Henrique Faría Fine Art, New York, NY
2010 Art/Basel. Galería Faría Fabregas, Miami, FL
ArteBo Art Fair. Galería Faría Fabregas, Bogotá, Colombia
Negativa Moderna. Henrique Faría Fine Art, New York, NY
Then & Now: Abstraction in Latin American Art, 1950-Present. Deutsche Bank Gallery, NY
A Collective Sum. Ideobox Artspace, Miami, FL
2009 Zona Maco México Arte Contemporáneo. Henrique Faría Fine Art, México, DF
Explorando el Sur. Fundación Carlos de Amberes, Madrid, Spain
2008 Ñew York, Galería Astarté, Madrid
2007 Iberoamérica Glocal. Casa de América, Madrid
Pinta Art Fair, Henrique Faría Fine Art, New York, NY
Jump Cuts: Venezuelan Contemporary Art. Coleccion Mercantil. CIFO, Miami
Balelatina Art Fair. Henrique Faría Fine Art, Basel, Switzerland
Feria Arte BA. Henrique Faria Fine Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2006 The (S) Files/The Selected Files. Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico
2005 The (S) Files/The Selected Files. El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
Buenos Aires Photo. Galería Clave, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Diálogos: Arte latinoamericano desde la Coleccion Cisneros. Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia
Jump Cuts: Venezuelan Contemporary Art, Coleccion Mercantil, Americas Society, New York, NY
2004 The Fine Line (between something and nothing). Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York, NY
Colored Pencil. KS Art, New York, NY
Arte contemporaneo venezolano en la Coleccion Cisneros, 1990-2004. Museo de Arte Moderno Jesus Soto, Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela
Colección Bidimensional MACCSI. Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Sofia Imber, Caracas, Venezuela
2000 Living is Easy. Richard Anderson Fine Arts, New York, NY Nuevas adquisiciones. Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas
1999 ARCO Art Fair. Sala Alternativa, Madrid, Spain
Faculty Exhibition. Visceglia Gallery, Caldwell College, Caldwell, NJ
1998 The Jewel Box Project, Bang on a Can Benefit, GAGA, N.Y.
1997 ARCO Art Fair. Sala Alternativa, Madrid
Relocating Landscape: East and West. Visceglia Gallery, Caldwell College, N.J.
La Invención de la Continuidad. Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas
Adquisiciones Recientes. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía Imber, Caracas
1996 Paintings, Moe's Meat Market, New York, NY
1995 Cross Section, Eighth Floor Gallery, New York, NY
1994 Salón Arturo Michelena. Ateneo de Valencia, Valencia, Venezuela
Venezuela +1 Artstorming. The Venezuelan Center Gallery, New York, NY
1992 Espacios creados – Espacios vistos. Galería Clave, Caracas
I Bienal Camille Pissarro. Centro Cultural Consolidado, Caracas
1991 44 por 44 X 44. Galería Euroamericana, Caracas
1990 10 de los 80 en el 90. Sala de Exposiciones CANTV, Caracas
1989 New Talent from Latin America. I Latin American Art and Culture Festival, Brasilia, Brasil
I Bienal de Artes Visuales Christian Dior. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía Imber, Caracas
1985 III Bienal de Jóvenes Artistas. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Caracas
1983 Exposition des Artistes Etrangers Boursiers du Gouvernement Français.
Théâtre du Rond-Point, Paris, France
1982 Petits Formats. Espace Latinoaméricain, Paris