Wardell Milan: Modern Utopia

Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present Modern Utopia, an exhibition of new multimedia work by Wardell Milan.

Ranging from intimate collages to large-scale narrative paintings, the artist depicts scenes of pleasure or

violence, often imbued with a sense of unease. Long grounded in photography, his work is open-armed in its

approach to materials. Images from photojournalism and news media often serve as references for figures in

acrylic and oil pastel, and photographs by artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe are cut and recombined with

graphite markings. This will be Milan’s third solo show with the gallery since 2019. A reception with the artist

will take place on Saturday, March 23, from 2-4pm.

Several large works depict scenes of strife, pictured in human terms. In one, a couple embrace in a vivid red

room while bombs explode outside. In another, children anxiously look to a sky filled with gunfire or rockets.

As in much of his work, Milan bases his figures on photographs that he finds in newspapers, online news sites,

and magazines, often using many different sources for a single piece. The technique connects his work to

current events, including themes of war and migration, while focusing on the individual relationships between

his subjects.Other large works depict water, continuing Milan’s formal engagement with the color blue. In one, a group

lounges at the edge of a pond. Their poses are relaxed, but a note of foreboding pervades the dark water and

sky. In another, men and women stand knee-deep in ocean waves, reaching towards two figures that slip into

or out of the water. In these works, Milan considers the role that large bodies of water have played in

narratives of escape, while also serving as a site of leisure or celebration.

In many works, Milan draws and redraws faces or body parts, creating surreal heads that look in several

directions, or legs that twist and bend. A female figure reclines, framed by at least two sets of arms. In

drawings of female bodybuilders, women flex many limbs. With a nod to Cubism, the approach implies

movement, but also suggests an echo of violence.

Milan began drawing bodybuilders more than fifteen years ago—in returning to the subject, he was interested

in the dedication required to transform the human body, a theme he relates to gender transition. Milan

connects the drawings to two delicate portraits in charcoal and oil pastel titled The Divine Feminine. The

portraits present a vulnerable yet wary picture of fictional subjects who claim an identity between the

masculine and feminine.

Milan has described his ongoing series of tulip paintings as a kind of self-portraiture. In the latest, paint

partially covers the fine charcoal and graphite underdrawings, creating abstracted, pastel colored groupings

of flowers. In other works, Milan continues his unorthodox depictions of Klan members, taking humorous aim

at dark imagery with references to sadomasochism.

Wardell Milan has been featured in solo shows at the Bronx Museum of Art, New York, and the Benton

Museum of Art at Pomona College, Claremont, California. Group exhibitions include the three person shows

Please Stay Home at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, Boston, featuring the

work of Darrel Ellis and Leslie Hewitt; and Dawoud Bey, John Edmonds, Wardell Milan at the Art Gallery of

Ontario. His works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Denver

Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Morgan

Library & Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York;

UBS Art Collection; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Milan’s work was the

subject of the 2015 monograph between late summer and early fall, edited by Cay Sophie Rabinowitz and

published by Osmos Books.