Hans Breder
Hans Breder is a prominent, if discreetly acknowledged artist who was originally from Germany and was a co-founder of the Intermedia Program at the University of Iowa in the late 1960's, where he was a teacher as well as a lover of the artist Ana Mendieta (1948-1985). He took many of the photographs documenting her early performances in Mexico and elsewhere, images that are among the strongest in her Whitney retrospective. Indeed, a full understanding of Mendieta's career must take into account the collaborative aspect of that early work, as to some extent the exhibition catalog does.
That said, the difference between the two artists seems clear from comparative evidence. Several photographs from Mr. Breder's ''Ventosa'' series (1973), for which Mendieta served as a model, have been included in several major Mendieta shows such as the Whitney retrospective. In them, she lies nude in the surf on a beach in Oaxaca, Mexico, holding a large polished steel mirror that hides her torso but reflects her lower body, leaving her figure truncated, headless and composed of four splayed legs. Mr. Breder has since made other photographs using the mirrors and he has recently photographed women in a wooded section of Iowa …
Hans Breder is a prominent, if discreetly acknowledged artist who was originally from Germany and was a co-founder of the Intermedia Program at the University of Iowa in the late 1960's, where he was a teacher as well as a lover of the artist Ana Mendieta (1948-1985). He took many of the photographs documenting her early performances in Mexico and elsewhere, images that are among the strongest in her Whitney retrospective. Indeed, a full understanding of Mendieta's career must take into account the collaborative aspect of that early work, as to some extent the exhibition catalog does.
That said, the difference between the two artists seems clear from comparative evidence. Several photographs from Mr. Breder's ''Ventosa'' series (1973), for which Mendieta served as a model, have been included in several major Mendieta shows such as the Whitney retrospective. In them, she lies nude in the surf on a beach in Oaxaca, Mexico, holding a large polished steel mirror that hides her torso but reflects her lower body, leaving her figure truncated, headless and composed of four splayed legs. Mr. Breder has since made other photographs using the mirrors and he has recently photographed women in a wooded section of Iowa where he documented several of Mendieta's performances.
His 2012 Algus Greenspon exhibition draws on three aspects of Breder’s work: new paintings grounded in an exploration of the neuro-opthalmology of image perception, conceptual sculptures made by telephone in 1969, and a recent video installation, continuing Breder’s 40 year interest in the medium. His recent 2012 Opsis series of paintings are arechromatic computer gradient images on canvas investigating the physiology of color vision. Working with a neuro-opthalmologist and a scientific imaging specialist, Breder utilizes the interactions of the retina’s color sensitive photoreceptor cone cells (S, M, and L) by converting the cells’ differing spectral sensitivities into RGB print values. The result is paintings whose vibrating color space, where image and afterimage interact, recall the utopian optical constructivism of painters like Wojciech Fangor, as well as the meticulously Photoshopped, if blithely neutered, color field photography of younger artists like Cory Arcangel.
Cleveland Museum, Cleveland, OH
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
McCrory Corporation, New York, NY
Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, WI
National Gallery of Art, Wahington, DC
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany
Oberpostdirektion, Münster, Germany
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, IA
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Weslyan College, Lincoln, NE
Hachmeister Gallerie, Münster, Germany
Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, NY
Stephen Foster Fine Arts, New London, CT