New Works by Hernan Bas On View at The Bass
As a featured exhibition for The Bass’s 60th anniversary, “Hernan Bas: The Conceptualists” includes 35 paintings, including a sweeping 9-by-21-foot canvas, which immerse viewers in the artist’s spellbinding take on conceptual art as a celebration of queerness and uninhibited self-expression. Each work spotlights a single character wrapped up in distinctive pastimes, from memorializing hitchhikers on the side of the road to sculpting objects to hold ice to embellishing the leaves of decaying houseplants. Surrounded by innumerable cultural motifs, including religion, literature, youth culture, mythology, and the struggle for gay rights, Bas’s magnetic canvases capture their male protagonists in ravishing moments of hushed contemplation and focused study.
