Institute of Contemporary Art Miami ICA Miami

“Carroll Dunham” is the painter’s first museum survey of paintings in more than 25 years. Showcasing over 50 works from 1983 to the present, the exhibition charts the evolution of Dunham’s dynamic iconography and his exploration of the psychological and allegorical dimensions of form. For over five decades, Dunham has produced a rich and compelling body of painting. His iconic compositions move between abstraction and figuration, traversing biomorphic forms, natural landscapes, architecture, scenes of sexual and creative liberation, and acts of violence. He often draws upon both high and low cultural references, from the heroic pictorial languages that defined postwar American painting to the caustic underground comics of the 1960s.

“Carroll Dunham” takes both a thematic and chronological approach, demonstrating the continuous evolution of Dunham’s vision. Opening with a selection of Dunham’s earliest iconic paintings, the exhibition introduces the artist’s abstractions, in which amorphous and cartoonish forms mimic and emerge from the grain of wooden panels, spawning original forms. In subsequent paintings, the presentation charts the evolution of these abstractions into strange creatures and landmasses, chaotic scenes rendered in vibrant, cartoon colors and bubbling with protrusions.

After decades expanding the limits of abstraction, figuration became the central component of Dunham’s paintings during the mid-1990s. During this time, Dunham produced paintings suggesting newly formed, yet already polluted and overpopulated imagined worlds. Additional characters also began to enter Dunham’s lexicon, notably, the “shooter,” a figure with male genitalia for facial features, who often carries a weapon. The recurring motif, situated within psychologically charged scenes, reflects the complex, often toxic, relationship between guns and masculinity that has shaped American history and contemporary culture.

Throughout the 2000s, Dunham’s oeuvre continued to expand, featuring scenes of innocence, inspiration and liberation alluding to art historical bathers, bountiful trees and Edenic gardens. In contrast, by the mid-2010s, the “Wrestlers” emerged as recurring protagonists that balance physicality and eroticism with the suggestion of violence. The exhibition pairs these seemingly opposing explorations of the artist’s forays into figuration, offering new insights into the psychological complexity of his work as it continues to evolve.

“Carroll Dunham” also speaks to the present moment in Dunham’s practice, featuring several new works that represent the artist’s studio as a meditative and reflective space, collectively demonstrating the past, present, and current state of the acclaimed artist’s ongoing innovations and exploration of new painterly territory. Across the various series of Dunham’s work, the chaos of civilization mirrors the manifold possibilities of creation.

“Carroll Dunham” is organized by ICA Miami and curated by Alex Gartenfeld, Irma and Norman Braman Artistic Director, and Gean Moreno, Director, Art + Research Center, with curatorial research by Donna Honarpisheh, Associate Curator, Art + Research Center.