CELESTE DUPUY-SPENCER

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer (b.1979) creates blistering paintings, loaded with a complex mix of iconography, drawn from the real and the imaginary. The artist grapples with urgent and fundamental issues through the symbolic and at times historical nature of its subjects. Both unflinching and empathic, Dupuy-Spencer gives life to arresting compositions that can be bleak and troubling, at times softer and endearing, in which the worldly and the extraordinary, the holy and the base, merge to present a multitude of possible meanings and narratives.
Image: There’ll Be Nobody Hiding (When That Rough God Goes Riding), 2020, oil on linen, 244.5 x 267 cm.; 96 1/4 x 105 1/8 in. Photo: def image
Solo Exhibitions
Group Exhibitions
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
Biography
VITA
1979
Born in New York, USA
2006
Yale Norfolk Painting Fellowship
2007
BFA at Bard College
Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Aïshti Foundation, Beirut
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021
The Dream of the Burning Child
Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles
2020
But the Clouds Never Hung So Low Before
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin (catalogue)
2018
The Chiefest of Ten Thousand
Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles
2017
Wild and Blue
Marlborough Contemporary, New York City
2016
And a Wheel on the Track
Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles
2015
(mostly) works on paper
Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023
Beach
Nino Mier Gallery, New York
2022
Dark Light: Realism in the Age of Post-Truths
Aïsthi Foundation, Beirut
Women Painting Women
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Forth Worth
2021
Stretching the Body
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebardengo, Turin
Prospect 5. Yesterday we said tomorrow
Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans
Equal Affections
GRIMM, Amsterdam
Inaugural Exhibition
Nino Mier Gallery, Brussels
2020
This Is America | Art USA Today
Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort
All Them Witches
Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles
2019
The World According To
Pace Gallery, New York
Transworld
Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles
2018
Made in L.A.
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
TEN
Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles
2017
Summerfest 2017, curated by Lauren Taschen
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
The Whitney Biennial
Whitney Museum, New York
2016
Human Condition
Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, Los Angeles
Tomorrow Never Happens
The Samek Art Museum at Bucknell University, Lewisburg
Pleasure Principle
Artist Curated Projects, Los Angeles
Frida Smoked
Invisible Exports, New York
2015
Queer Fantasy
OHWOW Gallery, Los Angeles
Fetching Blemish
Invisible Exports, New York
2012
In Plain Sight
Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York
Be-Out
Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York
2011
Dance/Draw
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston
LEIDY, CELESTE, NICOLE
Museum 52, New York
The Page Turners
FiveMyles, Brooklyn
Small Works for a Big Change SRLP
Jack Studios, New York
A Gay Bar Called Everywhere (With Costumes and No Practice)
The Kitchen, New York
2010
I am a feMENist, (with MEN)
Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City
Now Playing, (with MEN)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
Now Playing, (with Ridykeulous)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
B.Y.O.P.(Be Your Own Placebo), 28 Holden St., North Adams
2009
Ridykeulous Hits Bottom
Leo Koenig Inc. Projekte, New York
Chicks on Speed/Girl Monster
Breite Str. 78, Hamburg
Sessions
Taxter & Spengeman, New York
If You Can’t Find A Partner, Use a Wooden Chair
American Donut, Miami
DiSoRgAnIzEd (Another 24 Hours)
Museum 52, New York
Dome Colony, Hogan Community
X Initiative, New York
The Collection of Silence
Dia Art Foundation, Hispanic Society, New York
2008
Bent, Leslie
Loheman Gallery, New York
Balenciaga for Artists, Ridykeulous Event, Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution
MoMA PS1, New York
Making It Together
Bronx Museum, The Bronx
2007
Shared Women
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles
Ridykeulous: At Least It’s Not Abstract
The Kitchen, New York
Small Works For a Big Change SRLP
Sarah Metzer, New York
Future 86 24 Hours of Art in the Catskills
Catskill, New York
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Galerie Max Hetzler / Holzwarth Publications (Eds.): Celeste Dupuy-Spencer: But the Clouds Never Hung So Low Before, Berlin, 2022
Jeffrey Deitch (Ed.): Unrealism: New Figurative Painting, New York 2019
Samek Art Museum (Ed.): Tomorrow Never Happens, Lewisburg 2016
Publications

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer: But the Clouds Never Hung So Low Before
Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London / Holzwarth Publications, Berlin 2022
With a conversation between Celeste Dupuy-Spencer and Louise Bonnet
€ 35.00
Selected Press
Los Angeles Magazine December 2021
Forbes March 2021
Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla) November 2018
BOMB Magazine January 2018