Ice Hot: Recent Painting From The Scharpff Collection

Death be gone! Once again, the discipline of painting has proven tenacious and enduring. Long neglected in the shadow of photography, video, and Readymades, it now vehemently holds its own in contemporary art. A young generation of painters combines a sensual enjoyment of color and format, gesture and storytelling, with a complex understanding of how digital media shapes the present. Expressive traditions live on in this new painting, as do cool strategies, yet the approach of these contemporary painters is always calculated and cognizant of the medium's history. Ice Hot presents paintings from the collection of Rudolf and Ute Scharpff--and an excellent overview of contemporary painting. In recent years, the collectors have focused on the new painting scene, collecting major works by Neo Rauch, Franz Ackermann, Michel Majerus, and Daniel Richter. These are joined by paintings from the hands of Sarah Morris, Glenn Brown, and Darren Almond, as well as a group of works by Albert Oehlen, whose ironically serious commentary on the state of painting and of the world was an inspiration and model for many painters of the young generation.