Christopher Wool

Christopher Wool ( b. 1955 in Boston, Massachusetts ) is an American painter and printmaker.

Life and work

Wool was born the son of a professor of microbiology. His mother was a psychiatrist. He grew up in Chicago ( he gives this city often referred to as place of birth ) and moved in the 1980s to New York. He was first in SoHo a group of artists that sprang to Jeff Koons, Haim Steinbach and Robert Gober. He used color printing rollers for his first incurred the mid-1980s, ornamental paintings, as they are used to make decorative wallpaper pattern.

Since 1988 galleries and museums were aware of his large-format Word Paintings: white primed aluminum panels on which he encouragingly old word fragments ( Riot, run dog run, Sell the House, Sell the Car, Sell the Kids) and quotes in black color, aufsprühte or in the pochoir technique ( Stencil ) muster. In his current work he draws with a spray gun spontaneously linear forms on the painting surface, which he wipes out again in a multilayer process with a cloth soaked in solvent: " [ ... ] This creates a new image in which clear lines against wiped must maintain surfaces. "

Wool was represented at the 1992 Documenta IX in Kassel, and in the Whitney Biennial 1989. He lives and works in New York and is married to the German painter Charline von Heyl.

Exhibitions (selection)

Awards (selection)

• 2009 Wolfgang Hahn Prize COLOGNE