Scott Reeder (b. 1970 in Milwaukee, US) lives and works in Chicago. For the past decade, Scott Reeder has developed a practice so extensive and unique that it defies summarisation.
Read MoreHumour has always been one of the driving conceptual mechanisms in Reeder's work and he has been able to infuse some of art history's most traditional subjects, like the still life or the portrait, with a seldom seen lightheartedness. Through categorical disjunctions, caricatures, and formal irony, Reeder's work allows viewers to lower their guard and regard contemporary art with a sense of aesthetic freedom and optimism. Over the years Reeder has made multiple absurdist performances, clownish melancholic still lives, and deadpan genre-blending text works. One of the artist's most recent series, his Pasta Paintings are a paramount example of the artist's approach. Created with cooked and uncooked spaghetti and other pasta, the works appear as a backdrop readymade of abstract expressionism. Like Reeder's interpretations of cubism and surrealism before, these works lampoon one of the movements that sits at the heart of American high formalism and its aesthetic model. Reeder's satirical approach isn't hollow either, for all its comic value, it does ask for an ongoing critique as to how art is interpreted and historicised. Recently he has produced Landlord Paintings, an on-going series of abstract canvases made with paint rollers. Each new coat appears hastily applied and simultaneously fails to cover up and reveal preceding paint coats. These works have been presented alongside and exhibited within his set for Moon Dust, a DIY film project set on a failing lunar resort, completed as of 2014.
Reeder has always been a multifaceted artist, a filmmaker, a painter, sculptor, and performance artist. However, he is also highly regarded for his various curatorial projects organised collaboratively with his brother Tyson Reeder and his wife Elysia Borowy-Reeder, often under the name, Milwaukee International. They've given viewers General Store (2002), a Milwaukee storefront acting as a retail art store selling small multiples whether they be sculptures, cassettes or clothing. The Dark Fair (2008-2009), a contemporary art fair composed of select international galleries, that functions with one stipulation – that only candles, flashlights, and glow sticks may illuminate the work. Most recently, Reeder founded Club Nutz (2010), a comedy club, television show, and record label that appeared first at the Museum Of Contemporary Art in Chicago and fairs like the Frieze Art Fair in London before finding its brick-and-mortar home in Chicago.
Scott Reeder has been included in curated group exhibitions throughout America and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include Scott Reeder at 356 Mission, Los Angeles; Paintings of Things at Kavi Gupta Berlin; People Call Me Scott at Lisa Cooley, New York; Scott Reeder at Kavi Gupta Chicago and Chicago Works: Scott Reeder at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Recent group exhibitions include It Gets Beta at Marlborough Broome Street, New York; The People’s Biennial, curated by Jens Hoffmann and Harrell Fletcher at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; Purple States, curated by Sam Gordon at Andrew Eldin Gallery, New York; Another Look at Detroit: Parts 1 & 2, curated by Todd Levin at Marlborough Chelsea and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Awkward Phase, curated by Jeremy Willis and Lauren Novotny at 65 Maspeth Avenue, New York. Scott Reeder's work has been reviewed in numerous art publications, including Art in America, the New York Times, Flash Art, ArtForum, and Artpapers.
