(born in San Diego, California in 1946)
#500, 2000–2003, signed D Reed again signed, titled and dated on the overlap DAVID REED 500 2000–2003, oil and alkyd on linen, 236 x 141 x 5 cm

We are thankful to the David Reed Studio, New York, for the information they have kindly provided for cataloguing this lot.

Provenance:
Lauffs Collection, Bad Honnef

Exhibited:
Cologne, Galerie Rolf Ricke, October 2003
Krefeld, Kunstmuseen Krefeld, David Reed. The Mirror and the Pool, 22. March – 23. August 2015

“I want you to think about the paintings as if you were going to sleep with them nearby – the last thing you think about that day or as you wake up, and what you would think about seeing in the painting. To really live with it and have it a part of your life.”

Mary Heilman & David Reed: Two by Two. Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, 6.3.-11.10.2015, www.youtube.com/watch , 25.04.2022

When David Reed moved to New York City in the 1960s, he entered an art world that was skeptical about painting’s ability to be forward-looking. He has always been interested in screens and movies, fast moving images containing a lot of informati on, and admired the deadpan materiality of contemporaneous experiments in sculpture and film. Reed was seeking to make paintings that were as direct as a poured-steel sculpture.

During the continuous exploration of the relati onship between process and image-making in painting, sculpture, photography and film, he de veloped his very own style of Brushmark Paintings. Painting wet on wet, oil on canvas in fluent spa cious movements, his canvasses contain an abun dance of motion layered in different colors. With giving the depicted colors motional connotations, he defines their meaning to the viewer.

The added layer of alkyd in conjunction with the oil paint takes a rather long time to dry, keeping the painting customizable as long as possible. As the medium of painting itself is slow, its process of making is also slowed down by the artist. Reed’s works are describing particular moments, sugges ting both the stillness of the resulting images and the suspended motion of their making.