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until 20.12. | #4869ARTatBerlin | Contemporary Fine Arts presents from Saturday, 15. November 2025 (Vernissage: 14.11.), the exhibition “Sons” by the artist Archie Rand.
Contemporary Fine Arts presents, in cooperation with Max Werner, “Sons” by American artist Archie Rand — his first solo exhibition in Germany.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1949, Rand is one of the most important voices in contemporary painting at the intersection of text, religion, and pop culture. For over five decades, he has been exploring the relationship between word and image in monumental series of works — often inspired by Jewish scripture and commentary, but always beyond classical illustration. His visual language is expressive, loud, and full of narrative energy: bright colors, grotesque figures, visual overlays.
In his new series Sons (2018–2024), Rand references Francisco de Zurbarán’s Baroque paintings Jacob and His Twelve Sons, which he radically reinterprets. Instead of depicting the biblical patriarchs themselves, Rand paints their dreams – surreal scenes full of knights, dinosaurs, cowgirls, and urban heroes that seem to come from the visual worlds of postwar American comics. These works are both mythological and deeply autobiographical: fragments of a visual memory fed by childhood, religion, and art history. Rand’s painting oscillates between seriousness and playfulness, between religious symbolism and comic irony. It is free of nostalgia, yet imbued with emotion, desire, and existential force. As the artist himself says: “The image and text have to have a counterbalance so evenly weighted that you bounce back and forth and it all becomes a song.”
Archie Rand lives and works in New York City. His works are included in international collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Vernissage: Friday, 14. November 2025, 6 – 8 pm
Exhibition period: Saturday, 15. November until Saturday, 20. December 2025
Title image caption: Archie Rand, Simeon (Detail), 2019, Acrylic on fabric, 152 x 121 cm/ 60 x 47 3/4 in
Exhibition Archie Rand – CFA Berlin | Zeitgenössische Kunst – Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
