Fassbinder Paintings

Elliott Templeton Fine Arts is delighted to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by New York City-based artist Lucky DeBellevue depicting scenes from films by the director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. DeBellevue’s impetus for his new series of work was the death of a friend, curator, and early supporter, Frank Wagner, who happened to be a former lover of the German auteur. Deep within quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic, DeBellevue descended into a marathon of all Fassbinder’s films—exhilarated by the distinctive sensibility and intricate construction of images, DeBellevue began to paint. This series marks a move toward figuration and more classical methods by the artist, a contrast from previous bodies of work ranging from large-scale chenille stem sculptures, pistachio paintings, and block-printed geometric experiments. The pieces on display feature finely rendered snapshots of psychological and compositionally rich moments from films such as The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Veronika Voss, Querelle, and Fox and His Friends, among others. DeBellevue is primarily interested in the “exploitability of feelings,” as coined by Fassbinder, a central theme concerning how the characters across his oeuvre fall victim to cruel schemes and coercive relationships in a manner that—bleakly—reveals the psychological vulnerabilities of us all. For DeBellevue, this theme resonated during the heightened political moment at the time of his creation of the series, similar to Fassbinder’s interest in the culture and politics of postwar Germany. In this way, DeBellevue’s paintings take on a range of meanings: on one level, a painter’s sharp eye applied to cinematic aesthetics, but collectively, a looming undertone of the susceptibility of a society’s social fabric. In the salon room, selections on display include an installation of ceramics by Doug Bacho entitled “Underwater” and textile works by Daniel Albuquerque.