Featuring 35 paintings, the exhibition (4 December 2023–5 May 2024) explores conceptual art as a permissive realm for creative behavior and an inviting space for queerness.
While earlier works show male characters linked to specific stories, each painting in The Conceptualists depicts a single protagonist deeply engaged in an obsessive, idiosyncratic pastime. Bas’ subjects freely exercise the unique activities that give sustenance and meaning to their lives: carving objects that hold ice, fabricating roadside memorials for hitchhikers, chewing gum every waking hour of the day, or gilding the leaves of dying house plants, among other personal idylls.
Image: Hernan Bas, Conceptual Artist #12 (Both culinary and time-based, he refrains from enjoying his favourite recipes until the main ingredient recycles itself), 2022
72 1/4 x 60 1/8 in
