David Klamen (born 1961) is an American artist and academic. He is known for visually diverse paintings that meld technical mastery with postmodern explorations of the processes by which humans understand and interpret experience.Hixson, Kathryn. "The Work of David Klamen," David Klamen, Chicago: Richard Gray Gallery, 1996.Hersh, Lela. "David Klamen," Art in Chicago 1945-1995. Museum of Contemporary Art, ed. Lynne Warren, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996, p. 263. Retrieved May 16, 2018.Panczenko, Russell. "Interview with David Klamen," David Klamen: Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings, Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004. Klamen has exhibited across the United States, Europe and Asia, including individual shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), the Chazen Museum of Art and the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, and major group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Crocker Art Museum.Elvehjem Museum of Art. David Klamen: Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings, Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004. His work sits in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,The Metropolitan Museum of Art. David Klamen, Untitled, 1994; David Klamen, Untitled, 1993, Collection. Retrieved August 31, 2018. the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary ArtIndiana University Northwest. "Notes of Distinction," IU Northwest News, November/December 2003. Retrieved August 29, 2018. and the Whitney Museum of American Art,Whitney Museum of American Art. David Klamen 1961–, Collection. Retrieved August 31, 2018. among others. Klamen has been based in Chicago for most of his career, which includes being an educator for over thirty years, primarily at Indiana University Northwest, where he was appointed Founding Dean, School of the Arts in 2018.Indiana University Northwest. "IU Northwest announces new School of the Arts," IU Northwest News, August 8, 2018. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
Klamen has produced multiple distinct, ongoing bodies of work—often shown in tandem—that range from academic realist-like representation to Op Art-like abstraction to warped re-paintings of art historical masterworks.Richard Gray Gallery. "The Work of David Klamen," David Klamen, New York: Richard Gray Gallery, 2001. Los Angeles Times critic David Pagel wrote that a Klamen exhibition could appear to be the work of as many as six distinct artists, yet display sharp focus and virtuoso painting across a constellation of styles, subjects and strategies.Pagel, David. "The Solo Show as Group Portrait: David Klamen's Multifarious Paintings," David Klamen: Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings, Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004. He called Klamen "a master of the double take," using ambiguity to create epistemological doubt and curiosity in viewers. Critics and curators, such as Kathryn Hixson, have noted in his work an "oscillating relationship" between romantic and logical, subjective and objective; as a result they have often described it as sensuous,Artner, Alan G. "Show shines light on Art Institute graduates," Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1986. nostalgic and wistful,Yood, James. "David Klamen, Richard Gray Gallery" Artforum, October 1993. or meditative, mystical and eerily calm,Warren, Lynne. "David Klamen," A New Generation from SAIC, Catalogue, Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1986, p.12–3. but also enigmatic and brooding,Taylor, Sue. "David Klamen at Marianne Deson Gallery" Art in America, February 1988, p. 153–4. and uncanny and complex.Kuspit, Donald. "Sinister Beauty, or the Return to Pleasures of the Imagination: Five Illinois Painters," (un)earthly delights, Springfield, IL: Illinois State Museum, 1996, p. 9.
Life and career
Klamen was born in 1961 in Dixon, Illinois, in the United States.IU Northwest Gallery for Contemporary Art, "David Klamen: Meta-Paintings," Exhibition essay, 2012. He initially studied medical illustration at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (BFA, 1983), but switched to fine arts and abstract painting.Kelly, Clark. "Dixonite's artwork travels world," The Dixon Telegraph, August 8, 1992, p.17Garver, Thomas. "David Klamen," Mind & Beast: Contemporary Artists and the Animal Kingdom, Wausau, WI: Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, 1992, p.42–7. He returned to representational work at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA, 1985), melding his regard for Minimalism, realist painting skills, and interests in hermeneutics and literature to develop a signature style: dark, highly varnished oil paintings of animals, landscapes and interiors, rendered with meticulous craftsmanship, such as Kings Knight (1986) or Untitled (1987, see right).McCracken, David. "Gallery Scene," Chicago Tribune, January 1988.Holg, Garrett. "David Klamen, Richard Gray" ARTnews, March 1997.
Klamen attracted art-world attention while still in school;McCracken, David. "Guided by head and heart, collectors do their homework," Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1987, Sect. 7, p. 33.Chicago Tribune. "88 People to Watch in 1988," Chicago Tribune, Style, January 6, 1988. he sold work, appeared in prestigious shows at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (1984) and Art Institute of Chicago (1985), and secured representation with the Marianne Deson Gallery in Chicago, where he later sold out his first two solo exhibitions.Hersh, Lela. "David W. Klamen," School of Art and Design Alumni Newsletter, Urbana-Champaign: School of Art and Design, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1990–1. Soon after graduating, Klamen began teaching at Valparaiso University, and then at Indiana University Northwest, where he would serve for more than thirty years. In 1986, he was selected for the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago's "A New Generation from SAIC" show, and found himself with a two-year waiting list for new paintings, each of which took up to two months to complete from his loft-studio space in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.Lautman, Victoria. "Artists in demand," Chicago Tribune, Style, May 4, 1988, p. 2.Borden, Jeff. "Forty Under 40," Crain's Chicago Business, September 1994. In 1988, he retained European gallery representation with Galleria L'lsola in Rome and sold out his first exhibition on opening night.
Klamen has shown at Richard Gray Gallery (Chicago, and later New York) since 1991 and also at Haines Gallery (San Francisco) and Mark Moore Gallery (Los Angeles).Kluck, Marielos. Interview, David Klamen: Statements, Culver City, CA: Mark Moore Gallery, 2014. Prominent group exhibitions featuring his work include: "Mind and Beast" (Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, 1993); "Unpainted to the Last," (works Influenced by Moby-Dick, Spencer Museum of Art, 1995–6); "Art in Chicago: 1945–1995" (MCA Chicago, 1996); and "(un)earthly delights" (Illinois State Museum, 1996).Yood, James. "David Klamen," (un)earthly delights, Springfield, IL: Illinois State Museum, 1996, p.12–3. He has received reviews in numerous journalsCaruso, Rosella. "David Klamen, L'Isola" Flash Art, Febbraio-Marzo 1989, p.115–6. and U.S. and international newspapers.Johnson, Ken. "David Klamen, Richard Gray Gallery" New York Times, October 16, 1998.McDonald, Robert. "Five Young Artists' View of the Human Condition," Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1986.Caruso, Bruno. "Roma, Verna e Klamen," Corriere Della Sera, December 8, 1988.Il Messaggero. "Ventiquattro penelli tutti per la Capitale," Il Messaggero, December 13, 1988.
Klamen is married to Dianne Lauble, Principal of Blue Fly Toy and a former director of design at Hasbro Toy Group.Haluska, Ilene. "Artist from Dixon returns: Professor will hold presentation at local gallery Friday," Sauk Valley News, June 10, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2018. He has one daughter, Amelia Klamen, who studies medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine.
Work and reception Klamen's art can be strikingly eclectic, ranging from miniature to monumental, realistic to abstract, and meditative to aggressive.Weins, Ann. Review, New City, March 11, 1999, p. 32. It is unified conceptually, rather than visually, by his investigation of various historical methods of creating meaning, such as empiricism, memory, abstract or rationalized systems like mapping and digital coding, introspection, and Eastern enlightenment practices like chanting.Stewart, Lorelei. Interview, David Klamen: New Paintings, Chicago: Richard Gray Gallery, 2007. Klamen brings together wide-ranging influences—Minimalist artists such as Donald Judd, Carl Andre and Walter De Maria, literary sources like Melville's Moby-Dick,Schultz, Elizabeth. Unpainted to the Last: Moby-Dick and Twentieth Century American Art, University Press of Kansas, 1995, p.329-330. and the semiotic theories of Charles Sanders Peirce.Panczenko, Russell. "Foreword," David Klamen: Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings, Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004. His work can be classified into five often-overlapping bodies: 1) Darkly varnished paintings; 2) Multi-canvas installations; 3) Watercolors; 4) "Stripe" paintings; and 5) "Meta-Paintings" and "Re-mixes."
Darkly varnished paintings In 1985, Klamen began creating meticulous oil renderings of solitary, frozen animals (based on natural museum tableaux) and atmospheric, noir-ish landscapes based on memory,Klamen, David. "Landscapes" . Retrieved August 31, 2018. which he explored for their metaphorical qualities. He nearly obliterated these images with a layer of up to twenty coats of varnish,Hanson, Harry. "Mysterious ways," Chicago, June 1993. distancing them under an impenetrable, dark sepia-toned gloss, like insects in amber.Holg, Garrett. "David Klamen, Richard Gray" ARTnews, October 1993, p. 171–2.Yood, James. "Introduction," David Klamen, Catalogue, Trento: Galleria Paola Stelzer, 1991. This slowed disclosure of the work, as viewers had to allow their eyes to adjust to the hard-to-decipher images.Richard Gray Gallery. "David Klamen: New Paintings," Exhibition materials, New York: Richard Gray Gallery, 2001. He complicated the work by overlaying symbols, shapes or lines (often in stark white) on the varnished surface or by inexplicably leaving key areas unvarnished—and thus surreally illuminated—creating what critic Donald Kuspit called an "ominous, unresolved, uncanny contrast." In the early 1990s, Klamen introduced similarly haunting, austere images of architectural interiors—Victorian lobbies, halls and staircases in museums and universities,Klamen, David. "Interiors" . Retrieved August 31, 2018. often featuring solitary, illuminated precious objects—with works such as in Untitled (1993, see left) that some critics felt were his most powerful to date.Weins, Ann. "David Klamen, Richard Gray Gallery" New Art Examiner, February 1997, p. 44–5.Lynch, Kevin. "Artist Klamen's Slow Disclosures," The Capital Times, December 17, 2004.