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Exhibition

BILL COPLEY
BILL COPLEY
William Copley
HERSELF AN EXILE, 1948
OIL ON CANVAS
AHLERS COLLECTION
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017
17. November 2012 - 01. April 2013

BILL COPLEY

Presenting the artistic work of William N. Copley (1919–1996), Bill to his family and friends, is something of a tradition in the rooms the Ahlers Pro Arte Foundation now occupies: Back in 1995, the Kestnergesellschaft dedicated a solo exhibition to the American artist and his unusual career path.

Since the mid-1940s, Copley – artist, gallerist, author and publisher – has been an important mediator between surrealism and the pop art movement. His unorthodox visual language, tinged with his ironic sense of humour, makes him one of the most idiosyncratic personalities on the art scene of his time.

The wealthy scion spent a short time studying at Yale and doing military service in Europe before becoming a self-taught artist. He developed an affinity for surrealism and the main figures on that scene. As a gallerist in Beverly Hills, he showcased the work of the surrealists Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst and René Magritte between 1948 and 1949. During this period, he laid the foundations of his own art collection, which he continued to develop into one of the most significant collections of surrealist art in the world. Following his time as a gallerist, he focused his attention on creating art, making the impossible-to-pronounce CPLY his trademark.

Although his artistic interests had been shaped by surrealism, he kept his distance from the surrealists’ philosophy and ideas about theory. Despite this, he erected bizarre artistic monuments to René Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and, last but not least, Andy Warhol, who for their part returned the honour by supporting and promoting the man who admired them and collected their work.

In his pictures, Copley ironically dissects the complicated erotic play between man and woman; he thematises the absurdity of amour and transgressions, of celebrity hype and trust in brands. He stages a colourful commedia dell’arte, paying homage to the driving power of Eros. No other artist has been as dedicated to portraying passion through humour, the comical through comedy and the trials and tribulations between the sexes in such a gender-specific way as Copley.

Curated by Götz Adriani, the exhibition is in partnership with the Museum Frieder Burda and the Max Ernst Museum Brühl. It features around sixty pieces from all the artist’s creative phases. A large number of the works are drawn from the artist’s estate and have, up until now, only rarely been on public display.

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