Eric Wesley (born 1973) is an American artist who works with a variety of media including sculpture and painting. He is based in Los Angeles.
Biography Wesley was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, the son of two social workers. As a child, he planned to become an aeronaturical engineer. He earned a fine arts degree from University of California, Los Angeles in 1996. While Wesley primarily works from Los Angeles, he previously had a studio in Berlin.
Wesley's work encompasses sculpture and painting, among other media, and have been displayed around the world. He has held solo exhibitions at galleries including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Foundation Morra Greco, Naples, Italy. He has participated in group shows at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; CAPC musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux; Fundación/Colección, Mexico City; ARCOS Museo d’Arte, Benevento, Italy; the Prague Biennial in 2007; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; P.S. 1, New York; the Whitney, New York; and the Studio Museum in Harlem. His work was part of the collection TV executive Dean Valentine donated to the Hammer Museum in 2007. He has worked extensively with China Art Objects Galleries, Bortolami Gallery, and Maureen Paley. He was included on ArtReviews Future Greats list in 2005 and 2008.
He is also the co-founder of Mountain School of Art (MSA) in Los Angeles, an artist-run nomadic school that he opened in January 2006 with Piero Golia. They accept 15 fellows annually to a three-month program. The classes are free and all staff are volunteers. In 2008, Wesley told ArtReview that it was less of an art school and more of "an institution patterned on the university model and devoted to general education, with a curriculum grounded in science, philosophy and law."
Solo exhibitions Year City Gallery Title Notes Refs 1999 Los Angeles China Art Objects Galleries Camper 2000 Kicking Ass 2001 Pasadena Caltech Two Story Clock Tower Erected on the Caltech campus 2002 New York City Metro Pictures Gallery New Amsterdam Karlsruhe Meyer-Reigger Galerie Enchilada “The Endless Burrito” Turin Galeria Franco Noero Ouchi 2003 Basel Art Basel Jeans Theory, Statements 2004 Los Angeles China Art Objects Galleries Pico Youth Center Miami Locust Projects Eric Wesley I love WW2 2005 Amsterdam Bowie-Van Valen Gallery 2006 Karlsruhe Meyer-Riegger Gallery Audi Naples Galleria Fonti You say Tomato, I say Tomato Los Angeles China Art Objects Galleries Erik Wesley Museum of Contemporary Art MOCA FOCUS: Eric Wesley Pacific Design Center Thirty Three Point Three Three Three 2007 New York City Bortolami Gallery Spaference Room Naples Foundation Morra Greco Spa fice Münchenstein Kunsthaus Baselland Turin Galeria Franco Noero 2008 Berlin Feurig59 Ship Shape Shit Shelf and the Empfang Box 2009 London Maureen Paley New Realistic Figures 2010 New York City Bortolami Gallery D’Carts Blanche and New Paintings 2011 Los Angeles China Art Objects Gallery The Same ‘Ol New Frontier 2012 New York City Bortolami Gallery 2 new works 2015 Los Angeles 356 Mission Some Work 2016 Minneapolis Midway Contemporary Art ISOSCELES TRAPEZOID ARCH 2019 Los Angeles TIMESHARE Turning Tables Pico Pico Timbuctoo Alternate title: Sticks and stones may break my bones but words fucking kill me London Sprovieri Gallery Reputation 2022 New York City Bortolami Gallery Eric Wesley/St Louis 2024 Martos Gallery Three Sleeping Philosophers
Group exhibitions Year City Gallery Exhibition title Notes Refs 1998 Santa Monica Rosamund Felsen Gallery I-Candy Los Angeles Brent Petersen Gallery Drawings for Works in Progress 1999 L.A. Edge Festival Organized by Simon Watson 2000 ACME Gallery Young and Dumb Curated by Pentti Monkkonen 2001 New York City Studio Museum in Harlem Freestyle Sculpture: Kicking Ass Santa Monica Santa Monica Museum of Art San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego Ultrabaroque: Aspects of Post-Latin American Art Los Angeles UCLA Hammer Museum Snapshot: New Art From Los Angeles Miami Museum of Contemporary Art New York City Artists Space Purloined Ran September 6 - October 13 Karlsruhe ZKM Center for Art and Media Circles 3: Silver Lake Crossings Curated by Christoph Keller New Plymouth Govett-Brewster Art Gallery Drive: Power, Progress, Desire Curated by Gregory Burke New York City Metro Pictures Gallery 2002 Richmond Reynolds Gallery Drive By: Nine Artists from Los Angeles 2003 Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum Fade (1990–2003) Curated by Malik Gaines China Art Objects Galleries Works for Giovanni Glasgow Transmission Gallery More Boots = Many Routes With Lee O’Connor and Ryan Doolan Turin Galeria Franco Noero New Space! New Show! Guadalajara OPA: Oficina Para Proyectos de Arte Adios Pendejos London Campoli Presti Eduardo Sarabia and Eric Wesley 2004 New York City Whitney Museum of American Art Whitney Biennial Vienna Museum für Angewandte Kunst 3 Fireplaces and 2 Bathtubs San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum 100 Artists See God Curated by John Baldessari and Meg Cranston, organized by ICA 2005 New York City Bortolami Dayan Gallery opening event Closing Down: Thanks Los Angeles Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions A Walk to Remember Organized by Jens Hoffmann London Institute of Contemporary Arts 100 Artists See God Curated by John Baldessari and Meg Cranston, organized by ICA Virginia Beach Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art Reading Freedman Art Center New York City I-20 Gallery Installations Having Differences 2006 Minneapolis Midway Contemporary Art Axis of Praxis Curated by Nate Lowman Los Angeles Black Dragon Society Designomite Curated by Parker Jones London Institute of Contemporary Arts Alien Nation Curated by John Gill, Jens Hoffmann and Gilane Tawadros Long Island City P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center The Gold Standard New York City Bortolami Dayan Survivor Curated by David Rimanelli Nashville Cheekwood Museum of Art 100 Artists See God Curated by John Baldessari and Meg Cranston, organized by ICA 2007 Prague Prague Biennale Los Angeles Lizabeth Oliveria Milieu Angles Gallery Venice, CA Balmoral Gallery One Foot High and Rising Athens Kalfayan Gallery Darling, Take Fountain New York City Bortolami Substance & Surface 2008 Los Angeles China Art Objects Gallery The Light of the Virgo Pougues-les-Eaux Centre d'Art du Parc Saint Léger Los Angeles Confidential San Francisco Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts Amateurs Benevento ARCOS Museo d’Arte ITALIA ITALIE ITALIEN ITALY WLOCHY Los Angeles Kathryn Brennan Gallery Globetrotters Curated by Katie Brennan New York City Parrish Art Museum Sand- Meaning and Metaphor 2009 Los Angeles Hammer Museum Second Nature: Dean Valentine Collection China Art Objects Gallery 1999 2010 Museum of Contemporary Art The Artist's Museum New York City Bortolami Gallery RE-DRESSING Los Angeles China Art Objects Gallery The Inauguration of China Art Objects in Culver City, Los Angeles Mexico City Fundación Colección Jumex Les enfants terribles Los Angeles Cottage Home Video Journeys 2011 Amsterdam Temporary Stedelijk Museum 3 Making Histories – Changing Views of the Collection New York City 483 Broadway, SoHo Greater LA Bordeaux CAPC musée d'art contemporain BigMinis: Fetishes of Crisis 2014 Los Angeles Hammer Museum A Public Fiction Part of Made in L. A. 2014 Paradise Garage LIQUOR STORE 2015 Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art Out of Office Organized by Grace Deveney 2016 Cahokia Abandoned Taco Bell at 1296 Camp Jackson Road The Bell 2019 Long Island City SculptureCenter Searching the Sky for Rain Curated by Sohrab Mohebbi Los Angeles Hammer Museum Dirty Protest: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection 2021 New York City Bortolami Gallery Springweather and people 2022 Whitney Museum of American Art Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet As It's Kept 2023 Bortolami SWIZZLE TWIDDLE FIDDLE STICKS Ran 8 Sep - 4 Nov
Further reading
References
External links Eric Wesley at Bortolami Gallery