PRESENTATION: Hernan Bas-The Conceptualists

In his paintings, drawings and installations, Miami-based artist Hernan Bas creates intricately detailed scenes that invite viewers to decipher an astounding number of visual references. His works often involve a single male or group of male figures caught in moments of stasis, in apparent introspection or still repose. All other action surrounding the character is seemingly suspended for the artist’s and viewers’ thoughtful study.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: The Bass Museum Archive

Hernan Bas’ solo exhibition “The Conceptualists” features 35 paintings, many never previously exhibited at museums, including the artist’s largest canvas to date and explores conceptual art as a permissive realm for creative behavior and an inviting space for queerness. Mining literary sources, like the aesthetic decadence and queer eroticism of such nineteenth-century writers as Oscar Wilde and Joris-Karl Huysman, Bas incorporates visual cues into a range of narratives. From poetry, religion, mythology and literature to the histories of gay struggle, youth culture, news media and television, Bas’s detailed vignettes symbolically reference the peculiarities of cultural identities. 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. Speaking about the works on view, the artist says, ‘What before might have been seen as a rogues’ gallery of “weirdos” is now, under the guise and cover of “art”, a series of portraits of intellectuals. The humour I hope these works convey is intentional… I don’t consider my series of paintings to be a parody, but I have enjoyed the liberty of making portraits of artists who, while taking themselves seriously, might concede they’re being quite “clever”.’ Bas’ detailed depictions substantiate quirky behaviors under the generous categorization of “conceptual art.” These tales are queer, where queerness refers not necessarily to sexual orientation but to a pillar of conceptual art—an incomprehensible permissiveness and liberating space for a society grounded in conformity. The paintings which Bas calls ‘conceptualists’, made their debut last fall with his solo exhibition at Victoria Miro in London, followed by the sophomore iteration at Lehmann Maupin’s New York headquarters in May. The third and final chapter at The Bass folds the obscure tales of coming-of-age conceptualists with the series’ largest display. From adorning the lotuses floating over an azure-hued pond with lace doilies to shredding the pages of a lovelorn novella to alchemize its pulp, the tasks assumed by delicately proportioned men in their early adulthood court absurdity and amusement. One gets his hands on building a coffin out of popsicle sticks; fun for the other is to paste his own Polaroid portraits onto milk cartons in case someone will put a search warrant for him. Idyllic obscurities linger around the beautiful bodies like a hazy specter. In return, the boys don aloof yet determined demeanors, unburdened by the pressure of a fruition, yet giving their all for a finish line. The idea of a riff on conceptual art found Bas right after ‘Creature Comforts’, his Perrotin exhibition in Paris in the fall of 2020. ‘The characters in that presentation were doing really bizarre things like feeding their carnivorous plants with a giant piece of meat,’ he remembers. ‘As an artist who is protective of my characters,’ Bas adds, ‘I decided to give them a cover and render them as conceptualists.’ A tongue-in-cheek explanation behind his decision is ‘because, as a conceptualist artist, you can get away with everything,’ but the artist also weaves his interest in depicting youthful characters who threaten their beauty through risky businesses with an homage to artists who have made similar attempts. ‘Artists like Chris Burden, for example, took higher risks for art, such as getting shot in the arm, at a very young age,’ he explains. ‘And, one aspect of beauty is that you can get away with a lot more!’

Photo left: Hernan Bas, The Conceptual artist #2 (the ice sculptor: he exclusively carves objects which hold ice), 2021. Photo” Claire Dorn. © Hernan Bas, Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin. Photo right: Hernan Bas, A conceptual artist #15 (Performance based, along with a troop of hired actors he takes residence in fixer upper homes and feigns nefarious occult activity to stir up the neighbors), 2022. Photo: Silvia Ros. © Hernan Bas, Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin

Info: Curator: Dr. James Voorhies, The Bass Museum of Art, 2100 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, FL, USA, Duration: 4/12/2023-5/5/2024, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 12:00-18:00, https://thebass.org/