MAB is pleased to present an exhibition of new graphite on paper works by Mike Bidlo. The works on view are from Bidlo's larger series of drawings based on paintings by the American master Marsden Hartley. With these drawings, Bidlo continues his ongoing practice of challenging the idea of authorship while questioning the modernist canon. As Debra Bricker Balken writes, "Bidlo’s demystification of modernism’s core conceit of originality emanates not only from his acts of duplication but their recontextualization as his voice and property. As a result, his studio practice has involved a deep devotion to craft: that is, to the seamless reproduction that stems from keen observation and deft draftsmanship, both of which enable faithful reenactment." 

Accompanying the exhibition is a fully illustrated hard-bound book published by MAB Books with essays by Debra Bricker Balken and Brice Brown.

Mike Bidlo (b. 1953) is an American conceptual artist known for his appropriation of paintings and sculptures by 20th century masters such as Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Man Ray, Constantin Brancusi, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and Georgia O’Keeffe, among others. He is a key member of the generation of artists, including Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, John Armleder, and Barbara Kruger who emerged in the 1980s and practiced appropriating subjects and images from popular culture and art history into their own art. Bidlo lives and works in New York City. His work has been shown in the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; New Museum, New York; P.S.1/MoMA, Queens, New York; Sezon Museum, Tokyo; Saatchi Collection, London; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo; the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe; the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Fondation Cartier, Paris; Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich; Leo Castelli Gallery, New York; the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York; Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris; the Larry Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles; Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, New York; the Hal Bromm Gallery, New York; the Paolo Curti/Annamaria Gambuzzi & Co. Gallery, Milan, among others.