Stephen Dean

Overview

Stephen Dean is a self-taught French American artist based in New York City, whose interest spans watercolor, video and installation. His time-based works and installations summon physiological and anthropological approaches to color. Often working from existing forms or events, Dean focuses on the immediacy of color and it’s ability to precede language and cultural codes. With a sense of exploration, his contemplative and immersive works engage the chromatic spectrum as a spatial and social matter.

Works

Biography

Dean has exhibited nationally and internationally; notable museum exhibitions include “Le cours des choses”, CAPC, Bordeaux, “The Beautiful Game,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; “Shock of the News,” National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; “Les Maitres du Désordre,” Musée du quai Branly, Paris; “Double Down: Two Visions of Las Vegas,” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; “Mouth Open, Teeth Showing: Major works from the True Collection," Henry Art Gallery, Seattle and "Living with Duchamp" at the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore college, NY.

His works have been featured in the Whitney Biennial, the Seville Biennial, the Istanbul Biennial, the 51st Venice Biennial, SITE Santa Fe Biennial, and the Moscow Biennial.

In 2014, Rice University Public Art commissioned him a permanent installation for the Anderson Clarke Center for Continuing studies. In 2017 Dean completed a 70' permanent wall installation, titled “Crosswords” commissioned by the Percent for Art/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs for a public school in Brooklyn, NY. In 2018, he received the Peter S. Reed foundation grant. His early watercolors on newspaper are the subject of a monograph published by Bandini Books in 2020.

His video installation VOLTA is currently on view at the Copenhagen Contemporary in the exhibition Art of Sport curated by Marie Nipper. In the fall of 2021 his work will be featured in the exhibition Affinités insolites, curated by Jean-Hubert Martinat the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.

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exhibitions