Conversation, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole, Dole
April 28 - September 10, 2023
From April 28 through September 10, 2023, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole will stage Anthony Cudahy’s first exhibition in a French institution. On the occasion of this invitation, the New York artist has chosen to engage a dialogue between his own paintings and those of the museum’s collections, thus paying tribute to European painting that has so often inspired him. However, rather than taking the most acclaimed works from the Dole collections as a starting point, the artist has selected anonymous or unattributed canvases. This choice was made through his humility in the face of “great painting” and prestigious signatures, his taste for forgotten or lesser known artists and out of compassion for works that are rarely if ever seen.
This choice has been made with no particular preference for either period or style, but rather in terms of specific subject matter, related to his own painting. This painterly conversation, engaged from New York with the Jura collections, builds bridges across the ages.
In his paintings, Anthony Cudahy combines a wide variety of references: masterpieces of European art, queer archives, gay iconography and personal and family narratives. He incorporates these images into a chain of transformations, infusing them with affects and his own musings with each new iteration. His repertoire of flowers, the expression of love and intimacy or portraits, explores the registers of the romantic, the tender and the intimate. For his exhibition at the Dole museum, he has assembled around twenty of his recent works and associated them with oeuvres chosen in resonance from the institution’s collections: mainly narrative paintings, depicting idealized landscapes, nudes, scenes of violence and still lifes.
In return, these canvases will infuse a subsequent series of paintings, to be created specifically for the exhibition. The artist however, does not seek to extract the secrets of these abandoned paintings, shrouded in mystery. The conversation he engages with them is one of great sensitivity. By pairing them with his own works, he is reintegrating them into a historical narrative, and in the process, inventing for his painting an imaginary kinship on this side of the Atlantic.
Lightly held (gridding and no growth, building itself, rope held, taciturn moon) (Detail), 2023
Panel 1 — 36.2 × 36.2 inLightly held (gridding and no growth, building itself, rope held, taciturn moon) (Detail), 2023
Panel 2 — 72 × 36 inLightly held (gridding and no growth, building itself, rope held, taciturn moon) (Detail), 2023
Panel 3 — 72 × 72 inLightly held (gridding and no growth, building itself, rope held, taciturn moon) (Detail), 2023
Panel 4 — 36 × 72 inOur Earth, 2022-2023
Oil on linen
72 x 72 in
The Only Tune, 2023
Oil on linen
72 x 48 in
After Bosch ii, 2022-2023
Acrylic on canvas
60 x 60 in
Miguel Martinez in his studio (garden), 2023
Oil on linen
60 x 60 in
Ian (sliver), 2023
Oil on linen
60 x
24 in
The sculptor (Jenna Beasley), 2023
Oil on linen
48 x 48 in
Between rooms, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
48 x
36 in
Decaying tree, 2022-2023
Oil on linen
48 x 36 inLineage, 2022-2023
Oil on linen
48 x
36 inThe photographer iv, 2023
Oil on board
36 x 48 in
Seance (order), 2023
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 48 in
The photographer i, 2018
Oil on canvas
24 x 18 in
girl waiting, 2022
Oil on canvas
16 x 12 inSeneca in the studio, 2023
Oil on linen
14 x 18 in
Bruegel figure in sea of painting, 2023
Oil on linen
14 x
12 in
Ian with St. Lucy Eyes, 2022
Oil on linen
14 x 12 inGirl with fern, 2023
Oil on linen
14 x 11 in
Miguel with mutated flower, 2023
Oil on linen
14 x 11 in
After Bosch, 2022
Oil on linen
14 x 11 inIan dancing under moon, 2023
Oil on linen
14 x
11 in
hill (greenwood), 2022
Oil on board
12 x 12 in
Josh turned, 2023
Oil on linen
12 x
9 in
Red lion, 2023
Oil on linen
9 x 12 in
Colin night, 2023
Oil on board
10 x
8 in
Profile (green), 2022
Oil on linen
10 x 8 in
single flower, 2022
Oil on linen
10 x 8 in