Ross Bleckner: Commune
16th January, 2025 – 1st March, 2025
MARUANI MERCIER
Avenue Louise 430
1050 Brussels
MARUANI MERCIER is pleased to present Ross Bleckner: Commune, an exhibition of new paintings by the artist, opening at the Brussels gallery on 16th January 2025. In Commune, delicate outlines of figures, plants, sinuous lines, and color fields appear flooded with light, as if briefly emerging in our visual field from an iridescent dark ground.
The compositions often flicker in perception, shifting from abstract shapes to celestial bodies to human heads. These works reflect on the possibility of communing with the external world and emphasize empathy during moments of social and political upheaval. As Bleckner notes: “To commune with someone, to commune with something is the blending of you and something outside of yourself, something bigger than you. Hopefully, that’s what being an artist is, and that is what art is about.”
In Two Meet Again, radiant lines overlap and dance in space, forming an ethereal image of an encounter between two people. Ghost-like and transparent, the figures seem to float on the verge of recognition, evoking a fleeting thought or mental image of human connections. Part of a series dedicated to the memory of a close friend, Two Meet Again meditates on the persistence of an image or presence over time. Intertwined with outer networks of lines, the figures remain in a constant state of becoming, transcending loss through an awareness of the present moment.
For Bleckner, the soft focus of his compositions mirrors the workings of the mind—alternating between attention and oblivion. Exploring the intersection of biological and psychic, cellular and celestial, the works in Commune probe the vulnerability of the human condition and humanity’s place within the natural order.
In What is the Grass, Bleckner begins with a scan of the human brain, transforming its network of synaptic connections into an image reminiscent of a floral meadow or a constellation. Oscillating between micro and macro perspectives, the piece embraces the complexity of systems that elude understanding or control. Reflecting on this, the artist remarks: “There is an ineffable quality of imagery that you can locate, but it always slips through. Things aren’t in our control as we would like them to be; they have a fluid quality and keep moving and changing. That’s a kind of Buddhist idea. This is something we get used to—either willingly or unwillingly—things change.”
About Ross Bleckner
Ross Bleckner (b. 1949, New York) is a prominent artist whose work delves into the fragility of life, particularly in response to the AIDS crisis that gripped New York in the 1980s. His paintings are meditations on change, loss, and memory, with recurring themes of the body, health, and disease. Bleckner reflects: “The idea that the body is so perfect until it’s not perfect. It’s a fragile membrane that separates us from disaster.”
This contemplation on life’s impermanence resonates deeply in his art, whether through abstract stripes and dots or representational imagery of birds, flowers, and brains. His iconic multicolored circles, or “cells,” layered on dark backgrounds, evoke the appearance of blood droplets or microscopic molecules, creating a hypnotic and disorienting effect.
Bleckner studied under Sol LeWitt and Chuck Close at New York University, earning a BA in 1971 and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1973, where he met David Salle. Returning to New York in 1974, he moved into a Tribeca loft shared with Julian Schnabel, which also housed the Mudd Club, a hub for musicians and artists. In the 1980s, Bleckner’s early Stripe paintings, an homage to Bridget Riley, received mixed reviews. However, his works addressing the AIDS crisis, featuring motifs like candelabras, chandeliers, and rococo patterns against dark backgrounds, became pivotal. His Cell paintings, inspired by diseased human cells, gained personal resonance after his father’s battle with cancer.
Bleckner’s exploration continued with motifs such as birds and techniques like airbrushing. His Constellation and Architecture of the Sky series from the late 1980s and early 1990s invoke celestial imagery and domed interiors, further broadening his thematic range. At 45, Bleckner became the youngest artist to receive a midcareer retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1995. His work is part of prestigious collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. His exhibitions span globally, with shows at institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, Reina Sofia in Madrid, and the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern. Bleckner continues to live and work in New York.
Ross Bleckner: Commune opens on the 16th of January, 2025 until the 1st of March, 2025 at MARUANI MERCIER, Brussels
©2024 MARUANI MERCIER
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