Djordje Ozbolt: More paintings about poets and food at Hauser & Wirth

Performa founder and director RoseLee Goldberg with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 painting The Intruder

By PAUL LASTER, JAN. 2015

An artist with an incredible sense of whimsy, Djordje Ozbolt packed the house at Hauser & Wirth’s Uptown gallery with paintings, drawings and sculptures, complemented by a captivated audience anxious to explore three full floors of engaging work.

The Belgrade-born, London-based artist presents 34 recent works, including 50 ways to leave your lover, which is made up of 50 quickly made, experimental paintings that touch on culture and politics, figuration and abstraction. Other imaginative works range from a painting with a Sunny Side Up egg splayed on a landscape and another canvas of an accumulation of abstract brushstrokes defining a Poet Smoking a cigarette to a big pink sculpture of a Really Big Mac and a drawing of miniature heads of recovering alcoholics at an AA Meeting. 

Masterfully composed, with a broad knowledge of culture and everyday life, Ozbolt’s first New York solo with Hauser & Wirth is a delightful treat.

Scroll through the photos below to see some of the work on view with some of the people that turned out for opening night. WM

Absolut Art ambassador Alban de Pury with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 painting Pearls of Wisdom

Gallerist Craig Starr and art collector and independent curator Beth Rudin DeWoody
with paintings from Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 series 50 Ways to leave your lover

Djordje Ozbolt with paintings from his 2014 series 50 Ways to leave your lover

Rhode Island School of Design curator of Contemporary Art Dominic Molon with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 sculpture Let Her Eat Paint

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden curator at large Gianni Jetzer with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 painting Welcome to the Forest

Writer and curator Grace Rong Li with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 painting Sunny Side Up

Art collectors Herbert and Lenore Schorr with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 painting Me and My Pets

Art critic Katya Kazakina and artist Greg Goldberg with paintings from Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 series 50 Ways to leave your lover

Actor Mike Myers and wife Kelly Tisdale Myers with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 sculpture Help

Hauser & Wirth partner Marc Payot with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 painting Poet Smoking

Protocinema founder and director Mari Spirito and artist Ahmet Ogut with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 painting Ye Olde Shrunken Head

Architect Markus Dochantschi with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 painting Blind as an Owl

Art critic Robin Cembalest with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 painting The Gathering of the Flock of Jah

Art consultant Sandra Antelo-Suarez with Djordje Ozbolt's 2014 sculpture Really Big Mac