Robert Birmelin Drawings at The Art Museum, MSU

Written by Paul Holcombe Monday, 06 December 2010 22:21

EAST LANSING, MI –– The Art Museum at Michigan State University will exhibit Robert Birmelin Drawings in the Works on Paper Gallery from October 17 through November 4, 2007.

Part of the first generation of figure painters following the abstract expressionist movement, Robert Birmelin’s work explores the crowded streets of the urban landscape. In conjunction with his lecture on October 23 at 7 p.m., this selection of his drawings will be on view.

Birmelin’s work puts the viewer into the center of a crowded, fast paced setting, whirling around so that only a glimpse is visible in fragments — a shoulder, a mouth and chin, a dog on a leash. At times there is no knowing which side is up.

“My work often deals with motion, implied or actual, the viewer’s or the subject’s, and with disturbed equilibrium, with shifting balances. We do not live in a serene and stable universe,” Birmelin says.

Birmelin has had more than forty solo exhibitions and retrospectives, received numerous awards, and his work is in most of the major American museums, including MOMA, the Metropolitan, Whitney, Newark, Neuberger, Hirschhorn and Brooklyn Museums.

The Art Museum at MSU is located in Kresge Art Center, at the intersection of Physics and Auditorium Roads between the Alumni Chapel and the MSU Auditorium on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. Museum hours are Monday through Friday, 10 to 5 p.m., Thursday until 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. For additional information, call (517) 355-7631 or visit www.artmuseum.msu.edu.