Chloe Piene
Chloe Piene is a fine artist known for skeletal and morbid imagery. Piene was born in 1972 in Stamford Connecticut of German and Jewish parentage. She received her BA in Art History at Columbia University in 1993. Piene received her MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, the University of London. The work of Chloe Piene is known for its ability to straddle a very wide spectrum both in the play of her materials and as a certain philosophical position. Her work has made various and diverse associations with prisoners, love letters, failure, and heroic transformation. Chloe Piene has been called both brutal and delicate; figurative, forensic, erotic and fantastic. Her video and sculpture utilize the greater sensory impact of noise, time, shadow, and heavy materials to dig visibly into the more subterranean levels of experience. She is known widely for her delicate and penetrating drawings, which are typically anchored in the body and skirt the boundaries of fashion and anatomy. Her video and sculpture often take from ancient burial schemes and beliefs, which were a ritual mix of adornment and wisdom. She casts in iron, lead and steel and looks to history for the use and potential of the more ancient metals. In Piene's installations what is heavy and solid seems to float in thin air as if gaseous or ghostly. Death is light, and Death is heavy; typical to her work she creates a space which visually and forcefully accommodates both extremes. Chloe Piene's work has been exhibited worldwide, notably the 2004 Whitney Biennial, Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, The Witte de With, Rotterdam and at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Belgium. She is owned by collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Walker Art Museum, Minneapolis, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Centre Pompidou, Paris, The Olbricht "Me" Collection, The Albertina, Vienna, The Bruseum, Graz and the Sammlung Hoffman, Berlin, among other notable private and public Collections. Chloe Piene has taught as a Professor and guest speaker at institutions such as New York University, Cornell University, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Houston, Texas, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Museum School of Fine Arts, Boston, The Sotheby's Institute, New York, and at Northeastern University, Boston, among others. The monograph Chloe Piene with essays by Barry Schwabsky and Francoise Cohen is the most in depth publication of her work to date. Piene is represented by Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, Galerie Heike Curtze, Vienna and Suzanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles.