Whitney Biennial 2017
Mar 17–June 11, 2017
Julien Nguyen
38
Floor 5
Born 1990 in Washington, DC
Lives in Los Angeles, CA
Julien Nguyen’s paintings on view in the Biennial, Executive Function and Executive Solutions, employ the front-page layout design of the New York Times as a framing device. Executive Function represents what the artist calls a “microcosm of tragedy,” one characterized by conflict, including a battle depicted in the upper half of the work. Executive Solutions meanwhile presents desolate scenes of apathy, alienation, and exhaustion. These paintings mix Renaissance practices (such as the use of encaustic and one-point perspective) with cartoons, manga, and anime characters—visually collapsing the past and present to use allegory as a form of live-action or real-time role-play.
Executive Function, 2017
Julien Nguyen, Executive Function, 2017. Oil and encaustic on linen-mounted panel, 69 × 63 1/4 in. (175.3 × 160.7 cm). Collection of the artist; courtesy Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt and Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London. Photograph by Bill Orcutt