Robert Russell Porzellan Manufaktur Allach, 2023, Anat Ebgi, Installation view
About
Robert Russell is a conceptual painter whose work returns to ideas of memory, iconography, and mortality in a personal painting language that is attentive to beauty, the history of art, and the role of photography. Best known for a nuanced photorealism, his latest series depicts Allach porcelain figurines produced by forced labor in Nazi concentration camps and factories. Touching on something more personal, these hauntingly still and breathless figurines are marked by Russell’s distinct soft focus indicative of the tenderness and emotional depth with which he approaches these loaded objects. On the surface the beautiful imagery provides viewers with the opportunity for quiet reflection, while the reality of their origin turns thoughts to the nature of evil.
Robert Russell (b. 1971, Kansas City, MO) completed his MFA at The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Valencia, CA and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, RI. Russell has had solo exhibitions at galleries including Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA;The Cabin, Los Angeles, CA; Burrard Arts Foundation, Vancouver, B.C., Canada; LA><ART, Los Angeles, CA; François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; BIg Pond Artworks, Munich, Germany;and OSMOS Station, Stamford, NY. His work has been exhibited in group shows including Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Material Press MOCA LA, Los Angeles, CA; M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles, CA; and Gavlak Projects, Palm Beach, FL. Russell lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Although a painterly investigation of the figurines, their surfaces, and how they refract light, Russell’s work is conceptual in nature, in that his works achieve greater meaning when we learn their context. —Tom Teicholz
Transposed from a miniature scale to a monumental one, and from porcelain into paint, these subjects are alchemized from kitsch into art, like golems shaped from the clay of their dark history. —Juliana Halpert
The unsettling history of these objects and their manufacturing can’t be separated from the paintings and that is a critical aspect Russell’s intent: to fuse the beauty and the horror and to let the viewers come to terms with how they chose to interpret what they confront on the canvases. — Jody Zellen
Robert Russell’s paintings illuminate the dark history of the slave laborers of Dachau
We know this about former Nazi Party leader Heinrich Himmler: He was a mass murderer. He was a key player in orchestrating the Holocaust — true evil, personified. Lesser known: Himmler was into bunnies. And puppies. And baby lambs. Specifically: cutesy, porcelain tchotchkes of such creatures. A new solo exhibition of work by painter Robert Russell shines a light on the dark history of these innocent objects. — Deborah Vankin
Artist depicts disarmingly beautiful Holocaust art
At first blush, the recent, photorealistic paintings of Los Angeles-based Jewish artist Robert Russell look inviting, almost sweet. But all is not well in these enormous pictures. —Jewish News Syndicate
With an interest in the role of photography in image-making, Robert Russell’s paintings explore concepts of identity, memory, desire, authenticity, and the entire history of painting. — Anna Schneider
"From the very first mark on the canvas, the whole process of painting is a kind of meandering. There might be some ideas or hopes for the outcome but the process is the point. Painting is, for me, a practice, and if a picture emerges that’s good or, even more mysteriously, that someone wants to buy, then all the better!" —Robert Russell
Artist Robert Russell Discusses Memorializing Teacups in His Photorealistic Paintings
Russell is best known for his photorealist paintings, which address themes of memory, iconography, and mortality. His work often nods to art history and also reflects on the increasing importance that photography plays today. — Francesca Aton
Russell’s work is simultaneously rooted in painting and in conceptual art. He is invested in the ideas of reproduction, seriality, and transformation, as each of his projects presents variations on a theme. — Jody Zellen
Robert Russell | Concise Los Angeles Art Guide for February
Mysteriously set against deep black backgrounds, the larger-than-life teacups are carefully rendered like individual portraits. Russell based his surprisingly moving images on photos found on eBay listings and online estate sales. — Matt Stromberg and Elisa Wouk Almino
Robert Russell’s work addresses ideas of memory, iconography, and mortality in a personal language that is attentive to beauty, the history of painting, and the role of photography.
Robert Russell’s Book Paintings at Anat Ebgi depict meticulously rendered artist monographs, which appear to weightlessly hover in empty, milky voids. —Jessica Simmons
Review: In Robert Russell’s ‘Book Paintings,’ what you see is not what you get
That’s what his paintings do beautifully: make viewers doubt our perceptions and question our assumptions so that we might see reality with fresh eyes — as an unwritten story in which fact and fiction intermingle, playfully and purposefully. —David Pagel
Robert Russell’s painting style is a kind of dreamy realism, wherein observation, experience, optical phenomenon and art history all blend into a seamless, fantastical critique of how we absorb and process information. —Shana Nys Dambrot
Robert Russell Infusing Reproductions With New Life
It is a given that much art is experienced through reproduction and Russell calls attention to this fact by making paintings of books based on found copies of the original paintings. —Jody Zellen
His overt, even heavy-handed critique of contemporary society (especially the scourges of opioids, rancid politics, social media, and toxic celebrity culture) is enacted with a cheeky verve, in which humor manifests in story and style, though the message be cynical and dire such as befits our troubled times. —Shana Nys Dambrot
Review: Robert Russell examines potency of a name in the Google age
“Robert Russell” thus becomes a kind of cultural and historical phenomenon. But perhaps even more interesting is what the project reveals about a relatively new reality — the availability of millions of indexed digital images. —Sharon Mizota
Five Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week, From Tap Dancing to Ruined Billboards
Painter Robert Russell did a Google image search for Robert Russell and, unsurprisingly, found a range of strange, striking and stereotypical-looking men. He painted a number of them, doing so fastidiously on linen stretched over medium-sized frames. —Catherine Wagley
In this body of work Russell acknowledges the educating role of books specific to the context of the visual arts, that it is through reproductions that most people experience many touchstone artists and their works. —Jody Zellen
The sense that every cute baby picture is in danger of morphing, over time, into a sordid mug shot or a scene from Girls Gone Wild is very much part of our informational moment—Russell only needs to nod in that direction. More surprising is the way he manages to conjure in paint the sense that the image is a vague, swirling substance that is, at the same time, always hardening into something more or less irrevocable. —Jan Tumlir
Amid this sinister carnival of images, the sustained intelligence of Russell’s inquiry into the nature of representation is the only constant. —Christopher Bedford
History painting, the genre Russell evokes in a cockeyed way, is always more revealing of present than past. So it is with "Pink," a painting-installation whose Pepto-Bismol hues italicize today's pervasive sense of nausea. —Christopher Knight
Porzellan Manufaktur Allach, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA
2022
Robert Russell, Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
2021
Teacups, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA
2019
Book Paintings, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles,CA
2018
Moore. More. Moore., AE2, Los Angeles, CA
2016
Lisa, The Cabin LA, Los Angeles, CA
2015
Tonic Immobility, Burrard Arts Foundation, Vancouver, BC
Amateurs, LA><ART, Los Angeles, CA
Sein und Schein, Big Pond Artworks, Curated by Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, Munich, Germany
2013
Paintings of Men Named Robert Russell, Osmos Gallery, New York, NY
Paintings of Men Named Robert Russell, François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2010
Masters, Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2007
Scattershot, Anna Helwing Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005
Pink, Anna Helwing Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2004
Recent Work, Limn Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2003
Skaters, Frumkin/Duval Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2002
Eight Gardeners, Frumkin/Duval Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2001
After Images, Frumkin/Duval Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023
REVIVAL I - XVIIIe siècle, GOWEN, Curated by Laura Gowen and Rachel Cole Sherr, Genève, Switzerland
2020
Good Company: Pt. 1, Anat Ebgi Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles, CA
The Conversation, Anat Ebgi at Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA
2016
Perfect Day, Roberts and Tilton Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
The Art of Politics, Pasadena Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA
2015
Loosely Bound: Launch of Material Press
Performance of Men Named Robert Russell for Material Press, MOCA, Los Angeles, CA
Manifest Justice, Los Angeles, CA
2013
P&CO, Thomas Duncan Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012
SecondGuest, New York, NY
Los Angeles Contemporary Tendencies, Curated by Annka Kultys, Helene Bailly Galleri, Paris, FR
2011
The New Verisimilitude, M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
The Los Angeles Initiative, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
On Forgery, Curated by Andrew Berardini and Lesley Moon, Los Angeles, CA
Group Exhibition, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Culver City, CA
Portugal Arte 10, Billboard Project, Lisbon, Portugal
Portugal Arte 10, California Dreamin, Lisbon, Portugal
2009
Dilettantes, Dandies and DivasGavlak Projects, Palm Beach, FL
2008
Salon ARS LIBRI 500, The Cartin Colection, Boston, MA
Going Out of Business, Anna Helwing Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2007
Distinctive Messengers, Curated by Simon Watson and Craig Hensala, House of Campari, Venice, CA
2006
Farewell to Icon, Anna Helwing Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
The 2nd Annual L.A. Weekly Biennial, MFA WMDs, Selections from LA Schools, Curated by Tom Christie and Holly Meyers, Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Collisions & Pileups: CalArts 2006 MFA Thesis Exhibition, Armory Northwest, Los Angeles, CA
Nightmares of Summer, Marcello Marvelli Gallery, New York, NY
2001
The World of Figure, Limn Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000
The Changing Face of Portraiture, Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, CA
Publications and Press
2023
Halpert, Juliana. "Robert Russell: Reclaiming the monstrous kitsch of Dachau." Artforum. April 7, 2023 (Link)
Zellen, Jody. "Gallery Rounds: Robert Russell." Artillery. March 29, 2023 (Link)
Ghassemitari, Shawn. "Robert Russell’s Latest Exhibition Is Haunting Reminder of the Holocaust", HypeArt. March 21, 2023 (Link)
Vankin, Deborah. "Robert Russell’s paintings illuminate the dark history of the slave laborers of Dachau", LA Times. March 3, 2023
Aton, Francesca. "Artist Robert Russell Discusses Memorializing Teacups and Their Owners in His Photorealistic Paintings." ARTnews. February 25, 2021 (Link)
Zellen, Jody. "Gallery Rounds: Robert Russell." artillery. February 17, 2021. (Link)
Stromberg, Matt and Elisa Wouk Almino. "Your Concise Los Angeles Art Guide for February 2021." Hyperallergic. February 3, 2021 (Link)
“Teacups” An Exhibition by Robert Russell at Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles." Purple Magazine. February 1, 2021 (Link)
2019
Simmons, Jessica. "Robert Russell at Anat Ebgi." CARLA. May 22, 2019. (Link)
Pagel, David. "Review: In Robert Russell’s ‘Book Paintings,’ what you see is not what you get." Los Angeles Times. May 14, 2019 [Print] (Link)
Zellen, Jody. "Robert Russell Infusing Reproductions With New Life." Art NOW LA. May 17, 2019. (Link)
"Book Paintings" at Anat Ebgi. Wall Street International Magazine. May 3, 2019. (Link)
Nys Dambrot, Shana. "Meet an Artist Monday: Robert Russell." LA Weekly. April 22, 2019. (Link)
2013
“Robert Russell: Men Who are Named Robert Russell”, Osmos Magazine, Spring 2013
Mizota, Sharon, “Review: Robert Russell examines potency of a name in the Google age” Los Angeles Times July 25 2013
Wagley, Catherine, “His Name is My Name, Too” LA Weekly July 24, 2013
Frank, Priscilla, “Men Who are Named Robert Russell' Is Exactly What It Sounds Like” Huffington Post July 26 2013
Malone, Tyler "One of Many Robert Russells", PMC Magazine Fall 2013
2012
Socarras, Jorge, “Robert Russell” The Omen Magazine Issue 09 2012
2011
Goldman, Edward, “The Art of Twisting and Turning Reality As We Know It” KCRW, April 2011
Zellen. Jody, “Robert Russell : Masters” Artwrit May 2011
2007
Tumlir, Jan, “Robert Russell”, Artforum May Issue, 2007
Knight, Christopher "45 Painters Under 45," Los Angeles Times December 2, 2007
Bedford, Christopher, “Robert Russell”, Artforum.com Critics Picks, March 15, 2007
2006
Christie, Tom, and Holly Myers, "Afterschool Art", LA Weekly. September 6, 2006
2005
Knight, Christopher "Bacon, Pork and just plain piggy," Los Angeles Times June 10, 2005
2003
Juxtapoz Magazine "Showstoppers", July August 2003
Myers, Holly "Where internal, external meet," Los Angeles Times, February, 28 2003
2001
New American Paintings, Volume XXXI, January 2001
Los Angeles Times, Calendar, January 4, 2001
Artweek, Volume 32, February 2001
Artist in Residence
Burrard Arts Foundation Vancouver, BC Canada
Videos
Robert Russell Arist Conversation
A conversation between artists Robert Russell and Charles Gaines, moderated by Thomas Lawson on the occasion of Robert Russell’s solo show Porzellan Manufaktur Allach.
April 2023
Robert Russell: Teacups
Anat Ebgi presents an artist-led exhibition tour of Robert Russell: Teacups with the artist, Robert Russell, in conversation with artist and writer Daniel Gerwin.