Will Cotton

The artist

Born in 1965 in the USA, Will Cotton lives and works in New York. The artist belongs to the generation of American painters who have taken the language of figurative style painting in a totally new direction. He works in his studio building giant confectionary-based assemblages, such as gingerbread houses, sweets, cake mountains and chocolate seas, opening the door to the creation of a new reality. Will Cotton sees his works as utopias that explore the notions of temptation and excess.


Exhibitions

Biography

Birth Born in 1965 in Melrose, Massachusetts, USA
Residence Lives and works in New York City, USA
Education 1985 Beaux-Arts de Rouen, France
1987 B.F.A., Cooper Union, New York, USA
1988 New York Academy of Art, New York, USA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)

2023 Trigger, Templon, Paris, France
2022 Will Cotton: MARFA, Brite Force, Brite House, Marfa, TX, USA
The Journal Gallery, New York, USA
2021 The Chastened Cowboy, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO, USA
2020 The Taming of the Cowboy, Galerie Templon, Brussels, Belgium
2018 Ringling College of Art & Design, Sarasota, FL, USA
2017 Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY, USA
The Influx Series: Will Cotton, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, USA
2015 Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO, USA
Will Cotton: Vistas of Candyland, Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning, Ithaca, New York, USA

Voir plus

2014 Ronchini Gallery, London, UK
2013 Pace Prints, New York, USA
2012 Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA
Cockaigne, Performance as part of WERK! Armitage Gone Variety Show, Abrons Arts Center, New York, USA
2011 Cockaigne, Performance at Prince George Ballroom as part of Performa 11, New York, USA
Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2010 Will Cotton: New Works on Paper, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO, USA
Will Cotton: Monoprints, Pace Prints, New York, USA
Galerie Templon, Paris, France
2009 Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA

2008
Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, Colorado, USA

2007
Drawings, Glenn Horowitz Gallery, East Hampton, New York, USA

2005
New Paintings and Works on Paper, Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2004
The big eat: from pop til the present, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany
Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA

2003
Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, USA
Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France

2002
Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA

2001
Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA
Jablonka Galerie, Cologne, Germany

2000
Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA

1999
Devil's fudge falls, I-20 Gallery, New York, USA

1998
Silverstein Gallery, New York, USA

1996
Silverstein Gallery, New York, USA

1995
Distentions, Silverstein Gallery, New York, USA

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)

2023 Friends & Lovers, FLAG Art Foundation, New York, USA
Animaux fantastiques, Louvre-Lens, Lens, France
2022 American Masters, galerie gmurzynska, Zurich, Switzerland
2021 This is America, Kunstraum Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
and I will wear you in my heart of heart, FLAG Foundation, New York, USA
La Dame à la Licorne. Médiévale et si contemporaine, Musée Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France
Prétexte – du cheval à l’œuvre, Haras national du Pin, Le Pin-au-Haras, France
2020 Really, Miles McEnergy Gallery, New York, USA
Artist for New York, Hauser & Wirth, New York, USA
Comfort, Friedman Benda, New York, USA
2019 Like Sugar, Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA
Drawn Together Again, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, USA
Paintings, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA
2018 Castles in the Sky: Fantasy Architecture in Contemporary Art, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY, USA
Paintings, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA
Paper/Print: American Hand Papermaking, 1960s TO TODAY, International Print Center New York, New York, USA
Peers & Influences, The Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA, USA
2017 Really?, Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
About face, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY, USA
Cake Hole, Mrs. Gallery, Maspeth, NY, USA

Voir plus

2016 Tom Friedman (+the Birthday Show), 1969 Gallery, New York, USA
Summer School, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, USA
2015 Eye pop: the celebrity gaze, The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., USA
River crossings: contemporary art comes home, Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, NY, USA
The triumph of Love: Beth Rudin Dewoody Collects, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, USA
2014 2014
Disturbing innocence, The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, USA
Homeland [in]security: Vanishing Dreams, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, New York, USA
Close-up: Contemporary Portraiture, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY, USA
On the blue shore of silence, Tracy Williams, Ltd., New York, USA
Look at me: Portraiture from Manet to the Present, Leila Heller Gallery, New York, USA
Last night, Salomon Contemporary, New York, USA
2013 Come like shadows: Palimpsests, Traces, Specters of the Silver Screen, Nightlife, Veils, The Absent Present, Zurcher Studio, New York, USA
Fruits of captiva, Robert Rauschenberg Project Space, New York, USA
2012 American dreamers, Strozzina Centre For Contemporary Culture, Florence, Italy
2011 Tous cannibales, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France, USA
2010 Divine comedy, Sotheby’s, New York, USA
Accessories to an artwork, Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, East Hampton, NY, USA
2009 A tribute to Ron Warren, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, USA
Transitions. Painting at the (other) end of art, 24 mai - 31 octobre, Maramotti collection of contemporary art, Reggio Emilia, Italy
Aspects of Pop-Art, Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich, Switzerland
I Want Candy: The Sweet Stuff in American Art (exposition mobile), 26 juin - 6 septembre, Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Fresno, California, USA
Chelsea visits Havanna, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, La Havane, Cuba
Drawings by Will Cotton, Atlantic Center's Pabst Visitor center and Gallery, New Smyrna, Florida, USA
Talk dirty to me, Larissa Goldstone Gallery, New York, USA
2008 2nd Biennale of Canary Islands, Canary Islands, Spain
Wall Rockets: Contemporary Artists and Ed Ruscha, The flag Art Fondation, New York, USA
In Monet’s Garden: The Lure of Giverny, Musée Marmottan, Giverny, France

2007
In Monet’s Garden: The Lure of Giverny, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, USA
Abbondanza, Salvatore Ferragamo Gallery, New York, USA
Sex & Sensuality, Salomon Contemporary, East Hampton, NY, USA
A House is not a Home, Caren Golden Fine Art, New York, USA
I Want Candy: The Sweet Stuff in American Art, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York, USA
Horizon, EFA Gallery, New York, USA
Timer .01: Intimità/Intimacy, Triennale Bovisa, Milan, Italy

2006
Why the Nude? Contemporary Approaches, The Art Students League of New York, USA
The Food Show: The Hungry Eye, Chelsea Art Museum, New York, USA

2005
Hors d’oeuvre : ordre et désordres de la nourriture, CAPC - Musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux, France

2004
Summer 2004, Lucas Schoormans Gallery, New York, NY, USA
La Grande Bouffe - The Big Eat in Art, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany

2003
Sweet tooth, Copia, The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts, Napa, CA, USA
Giverny, Salon 94, New York, USA

2002
The Contemporary art project, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA

2000
The darker side of playland: childhood imagery from the Logan Collection, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, USA
Emotional rescue: the contemporary art project coalition, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, Washington, USA

1999
Will Cotton and Stuart Elster, Tate, New York, USA
A Room with a view, Sixth @ Prince Fine Art, New York, USA

Press Release

Arts Magazine - June, 2023

Will Cotton: Trigger

BOMB - juillet 2020

Interviewed

by William J.Simmons

ArtForum - juin 2020

Will Cotton at Galerie Templon


Arts Libre (La Libre Belgique) - juin 2020

The Taming of the Cowboy

Roger Pierre Turine

MAD (Le Soir) - juin 2020

"The taming of the cowboy" : l'Amérique à la licorne

Aliénor Debrocq

Art Interview - mai 2020

Will Cotton

Fanny Revault


Whitewall - mai 2020

WillCotton's Cheeky Cowboy Tames Ideas of Gender and representation

Eliza Jordan

Focus Vif - mai 2020

La virilité part en sucette

Michel Verlinden

Artsy.net - mars 2017

I Baked a Cake in Will Cotton's Candyland Studio

Casey Lesser


The Guardian.com - juin 2014

Fancy a sugar-rush? Meet Will Cotton

Aindrea Emelife

Telegraph.co.uk - juin 2014

Will Cotton: the painter who made Katy Perry his muse

Hermione Hoby

DesignBoom.com - juin 2014

Interview with artist Will Cotton


Art News - decembre 2010

Nothing Like The Real Thing

Gail Gregg

ArtForum - mai 2010

Will Cotton at Galerie Templon

Julia Langbein

News

Will Cotton
RESONANCE

Group show

Château de La Napoule, France
From August 10 to September 27, 2024

On the occasion of the group show Resonance, Will Cotton is exhibiting his work The Kiss from August 10, 2024 at the Château de La Napoule in France. The exhibition brings together 27 artists, all former residents, from all over the world.

Will Cotton
GROUP SHOW – FRIENDS & LOVERS

The FLAG Art Foundation, New York
October 6 2023 - January 20 2024

On the occasion of the group exhibition Friends & Lovers, Will Cotton is exhibiting his work at the Flag Art Foundation in New York. The exhibition focuses on relationships between artists and their subjects and explores the infinite ways, both past and present, we are influenced by our inner circles.

Will Cotton
ANIMAUX FANTASTIQUES

Group show

Musée du Louvre Lens, France
From September 27, 2023 to February 2, 2024.

On the occasion of the group show Animaux Fantastiques at Musée du Louvre Lens, Will Cotton will exhibit his work Roping from September 27, 2023.

Will Cotton
LA DAME à LA LICORNE MéDIéVALE ET SI CONTEMPORAINE – GROUP SHOW

Musée des Abattoirs
76 All. Charles de Fitte, Toulouse
From October 30, 2021 to January 16, 2022

In Roping, 2019-2020, Cotton switches treats for a surprising encounter between a triumphant cowboy and his fantastic steed which is none other than a pink unicorn. The mythical animal comes here to challenge the norms of the conquest of territories by men. The latter loses its virility in a wonderful world made of softness in which seems to dive a desacralized cowboy who is not without evoking a Queer update of that created in 1989 by the artist Richard Prince.