Florian Maier-Aichen's works conflate the convention of photography and painting. His well-known photographs of landscapes are also painterly investigations of space and process. Aerial photographs become topographies of abstract surfaces and narrative possibilities. Referencing analogue processes, Romantic notions of the sublime and the inherent mythologising of painting and photography's shared legacy, Maier-Aichen attempts to reverse the genealogy of the image. The photograph-as-reproduction and as-simulacrum are secondary to the mystical power of the image as defined by Barthes in the first half of the twentieth century.
Read MoreBy overlapping processes of mechanical reproduction and gestural abstraction, Maier-Aichen further recognises the reciprocal relationship between media. Darkroom processes are interrupted by spontaneous pours; expressive brushwork is flattened on film. The dual concerns of object and representation remain a constant throughout the artist's practice.
Born in Stuttgart, Germany, Maier-Aichen lives and works in Cologne, Germany and Los Angeles, California. His work is held in a number of public collections around the world. In 1999-2000 he was awarded the DAAD Scholarship, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst.
Solo exhibitions include: Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2014); The Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, Madrid (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2007); Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2006); 303 Gallery, New York (2006); Baronian-Francey, Brussels, Belgium (2005); Gallery Min Min, Tokyo, Japan (2004); The Bridges of Cologne, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2004); Gallery Min Min, Tokyo, Japan (2003); Blum & Poe, Santa Monica (2002). Recent group exhibitions include: Natural History, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2012); The Smithson Effect, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City (2011); The Artistʼs Museum, MOCA, Los Angeles (2010); USA TODAY, Saatchi Gallery/ Royal Academy of Arts, London (2006); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006).
