BravinLee programs

James Welling

  NA #59, 2011 (Red Stripe) signed and numbered by the artist in Edition of 15 + 3APs Hand dyed silk 72 x 57 inches - This rug is available in custom sizes

James Welling was one of the first artists BravinLee approached when we embarked on publishing rug editions. Welling has long embarked on a variety of formats and we thought he just may be open to a new one. Not only was he open, he was eager to see his work in a place not seen before -- under his feet in the living room. Having worked together many times previously, the trust was there. And we moved ahead.  

James Welling’s rugs are based on his “New Abstractions” a series of “photographs” that are cameraless-photographs (photograms) created in the darkroom with an enlarger, photopaper and handful of cardboard rectangular shapes.  The New Abstractions have been shown frequently in museums and galleries all over the world including the Sprengel Museum in Hannover, Germany, Regen Projects in Los Angeles and David Zwirner Gallery in New York.  At the core Welling is a conceptual artist, picture maker so the translation of his work into the decorative arts in a rug was a natural step.  Part of The Pictures Generation, Welling studied under John Baldessari at CalArts and exhibited with Sherrie Levine and Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures. 

Things Beyond Resemblance: James Welling Photographs, a solo exhibition hosted in 2015 by the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, presented fifty works from the artist's Wyeth project. The museum also commissioned the artist to create eight site-specific installations, Gradients, which explore the intersection of photography and sculpture. In 2013, a major survey, James Welling: Monograph, was organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum in Ohio and accompanied by a catalogue published by Aperture. The exhibition traveled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. In 2012, James Welling: The Mind on Fire at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, England, explored the origin and development of Welling's abstract photographs from the 1980s. The show traveled to the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea in Santiago de Compostela, Spain and the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver.

Welling's work has been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago (2014); Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; University Museum of Contemporary Art, UMASS Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts (both 2013); Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut (both 2012); Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota (2010); Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; Art Gallery of York University, Toronto (both 2002); Sprengel Museum Hannover (1999); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and the Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland (both 1998). In 2000, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio organized a major survey of his work, which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. In 1990, the artist's first museum exhibition was presented by Kunsthalle Bern.

Work by the artist has been extensively included in international group exhibitions, including This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, which was first hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2012. In 2011, the artist's work was included in Jeff Wall: The Crooked Path, first presented at Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; in 2009, Welling's work was featured in the critically acclaimed historical survey The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and in 2008, he participated in the Whitney Biennial. In 2004, his work was presented in Os anos 80: Uma topologia/The 80s: A Topology at Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal and Éblouissement at Jeu de Paume, Paris, and in 1992, his work was included in documenta IX.

In 2014, Welling was a recipient of the Infinity Award given by the International Center of Photography, New York and in 2016 he received the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award from Woodbury University, California. From 1995 to 2016, he was Area Head of Photography at UCLA and since 2012 he has been a Lecturer with the Rank of Professor at Princeton University. 

The artist's work is held in major museum collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; Vancouver Art Gallery; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He lives and works in New York.

BravinLee editions is a proud member of GoodWeave.

GoodWeave’s founder Kailash Satyarthi was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in honor of his career dedicated to ending the exploitation of children around the world. GoodWeave, an international nonprofit organization geared toward abolishing child labor in the carpet industry, has liberated and educated thousands of children, bringing them from carpet looms to classrooms.  Satyarthi and GoodWeave work to guide consumers to its Child Labor Free Certified rugs and replicate their market-based approach of certification in other sectors.  Kailash said at the ceremony, “I refuse to accept that the shackles of slavery can ever be stronger than the quest for freedom.” He asked those in attendance to place their hands over their hearts and “listen to the child inside.”