Dan Colen
Dan Colen has utilized nearly as many mediums as unconventional materials. Across painting, sculpture, photography, installation and performance, he has incorporated confetti, bubblegum, grass, dirt, flowers, tar, feathers and street trash. He has referenced figures from the collective conscious such as Blue Fairy and Jesus Christ, and he has even mimicked bird droppings with oil paint. Ultimately, this cacophony of subjects and objects share Colen’s interest in the tensions between figuration and abstraction, the ‘high’ and ‘low,’ the historical and contemporary.
Colen has achieved notoriety as an art world provocateur for his experimental and seemingly irreverent creations. He became well-known in 2006, when his megalithic stone sculptures were included in the Whitney Biennial, and he has since shown in major museums worldwide. He is closely associated with the downtown New York art scene of the early 2000s, alongside Ryan McGinley, Aaron Young, Dash Snow and Agathe Snow who collectively defined the period. Born in 1979 in New Jersey, Colen received a BFA in 2001 from the Rhode Island School of Design. He lives and works in New York.
Dan Colen Everything That Begins as a Comedy Inevitably Ends as a Comedy, 2012 Steel studs on canvas 78.7 × 78.7 cm / 31 × 31 inches