Michael Venezia

Michael Venezia (*1935 in Brooklyn, US) has been developing simplified paintings since the 1960s, inspired by the art of Abstract Expressionism and created simultaneously to Minimal Art. While artist friends such as Dan Flavin and Sol LeWitt developed a sculptural oeuvre, Venezia devoted himself entirely to painting and was thus formative for the New York art scene of the 1960s. He recognizes the material quality of color, which he explores by means of juxtaposed color strips. The relationship between the colors consistently accompany his work and he thus is able to develop his own combination systems. In the course of his work he continuously reduces the pictoral surface towards a clear horizontal plane and begins using wooden beams as a base for painting, which he individually processes and subsequently composes into paintings. Venezia's interest also focuses on the reduction of gestures in painting to its bare essentials, and as early as the 1960s he developed pictorial techniques with spray cans, for which he is considered a pioneer.

Michael Venezia has been involved in group exhibitions at the MoMA, New York, in 1971 and 1974. Subsequently, he participated in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the MOCA Miami and the Kunstmuseum Basel. He also had solo exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur and the Dia Center for the Arts, Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton. Most recently, the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop (2009) and the Kunstverein Heilbronn (2016) presented comprehensive exhibitions of the artist's work in German-speaking countries.


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