Oscar Murillo: News

David Zwirner is pleased to present News, an exhibition of new paintings by Oscar Murillo, on view at the gallery’s Paris location. Made while Murillo was quarantined in Colombia in the spring and summer of 2020, this new body of work is among the largest and most elaborate of the artist’s ongoing manifestation series.

The heightened physicality, power and visual intensity of these paintings speaks to the global anxieties and conditions of the present moment with newfound urgency.

Image: Oscar Murillo, 2020. Photo by Julián Valderrama

The Paris gallery has reopened to the public with a limited number of visitors allowed into the exhibition spaces at a time, in accordance with city guidelines.

To book your appointment, please click here.

La galerie de Paris est de nouveau ouverte au public avec un nombre limité de visiteurs dans les espaces d'exposition, conformément aux directives gouvernementales. La prise de rendez-vous est recommandée, mais pas obligatoire.

Pour planifier votre visite, merci de cliquer ici.

Location

108, rue Vieille du Temple Paris

Dates

October 21—December 19, 2020

Artist

Oscar Murillo

Press Release

News

“My life has been about movement for a long time. I spend a lot of time in transitional spaces, like hotels and aeroplanes. In a way, that life is no longer. It’s completely at a standstill.... I’ve been preparing for a shift...to spend more time here in La Paila, and bought some studio space. I obviously never assumed that it would be in this context, but I’m very excited to embrace the uncertainty.”

—Oscar Murillo in conversation with Krithika Varagur, The White Review, 2020

Oscar Murillo working in his studio, La Paila, 2020. Photo by Julián Valderrama

“Murillo’s art has grown in complexity. The context of production and productivity within his art making has evolved, establishing a porous border between the studio and the real world.”

—Okwui Enwezor, in the Foreward to Oscar Murillo, 2017

Oscar Murillo

manifestation, 2019–2020

Oil, oil stick, cotton thread, and graphite on canvas, velvet, and linen

106 1/4 x 110 1/4 inches
270 x 280 cm

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Oscar Murillo

manifestation, 2019–2020

Oil, oil stick, cotton thread, and graphite on canvas, velvet, and linen

125 7/8 x 163 3/8 inches
320 x 415 cm

Inquire

“There is in Murillo’s work a disturbance, a drama, a sense that paint itself is on the move.”

—Kate Kellaway, The Guardian, 2019

“My work...first and foremost it’s about a download of physical energy. And I think this is where perhaps they come to a broader understanding as to why I want to eradicate any kind of framework around categorizations.”

—Oscar Murillo in conversation with Charles Henry Rowell on Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast, 2019

Oscar Murillo working in his studio, La Paila, Colombia, 2020

“In his series titled manifestation... canvases are soaked in pigment and layered with a collage of oil paint, graphite and written letters, which are then erased under additional layers of paint. In these scrawling, seductive tantrums, Murillo examines the raw form of mark making, in what he refers to as a ‘flooding of the surface.’...The strata of power, which, for the artist, often points to class divisions in a capitalistic world, is nodded to in the layers of his thick paintings.... The works are simultaneously frenetic and anchored; they feel like a storm that’s found a place to land.”

—Cleo Abramian, Hyperallergic, 2019

Installation view, Oscar Murillo: News, David Zwirner, Paris, 2020

Oscar Murillo

manifestation, 2019–2020

Oil, oil stick, cotton thread, and graphite on canvas and linen

74 3/4 x 62 7/8 inches
190 x 160 cm

Inquire

Oscar Murillo

manifestation, 2019–2020

Oil, oil stick, cotton thread, and graphite on canvas, velvet, and linen

102 3/8 x 122 inches
260 x 310 cm

Inquire

“Murillo’s practice is one of active displacement and hybridization, constantly collapsing distinctions. Even the physical locations in which he makes work continually shift, from his longtime studio in London to in situ installations where he absorbs, sources, and uses what he finds around him to feed into the work.”

—Emma Enderby, “Meaning belongs to People”, in Oscar Murillo, 2017