Hernan Bas

Born in 1978 in Miami, Florida, Hernan Bas creates works born of literary intrigue and tinged with nihilistic romanticism and old world imagery. Influenced by the Aesthetic and Decadent writers of the 19th century, in particular Oscar Wilde and Joris-Karl Huysman, Bas’s works weave together stories of adolescent adventures and the paranormal with classical poetry, religious stories, mythology and literature.  Bas’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions around the world, including a major presentation at the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, in 2007, which subsequently traveled to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2008, and a retrospective exhibition at the Kunstverein Hannover, Germany, in 2012.  In 2013, Bas presented the multi-media installation, TIME, Hernan Bas: a queer and curious cabinet at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL and in 2014, Rizzoli published a monograph on the artist, the most comprehensive book of his work to date. 

Bas has participated in a number of important group exhibitions, including “The Collectors,” curated by Elmgreen & Dragset for the Nordic and Danish Pavilions at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); Triumph of Painting: Part III, Saatchi Gallery, London, and Ideal Worlds – New Romanticism in Contemporary Art, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (both 2005); and the 2004 Whitney Biennale. His work is part of the permanent collections of New York’s Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art; as well as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.  The artist lives and works in Detroit, Michigan