Albert Oehlen

The Omega Man (1971) is a post-apocalyptic action film starring Charlton Heston as Doctor Robert Neville, the sole survivor of a global pandemic. Fending for his life in the catastrophic wasteland of Los Angeles, the brilliant doctor fights off hordes of infected, nocturnal mutants. As the last human, Neville is also the final living symbol of the science and technology that have caused the end of humanity – and therefore must die.

For his first exhibition at Reena Spaulings, Los Angeles, Albert Oehlen has produced four new works scaled to the dimensions of the site. Oil paintings on large sections of shaped canvas have been adhered directly to the gallery walls, standing out against areas of rolled-on “signal yellow.” A repeating, vaguely humanoid form repeats and mutates across its four iterations, surrounding the exhibition space. With Ömega Man, Oehlen introduces a new motif – a sort of male/female end of the world symbol that becomes a catalyst for new and future paintings. This mysterious form was arrived at by accident and now insists as a monolithic presence, powering the exhibition.

Ömega Man unleashes a figure made of painterly action. Oehlen’s crude cut-outs address the viewer like monstrous ideograms, absorbing the gallery into the body of painting. An exhibition about how painting thinks and changes itself with itself, using whatever it has or was, freely, by itself and with us.