Nov 15, 2023 
Conceptual artist #5 (A budding gilder, his dying houseplants get the Midas touch), 2022
© Hernan Bas. Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro
The latest works of the highly acclaimed American artist Hernan Bas will be on view at The Bass Museum this December 4, 2023, through May 5, 2024, commemorating the organization’s 60th anniversary. The exhibition titled “The Conceptualists” includes thirty-five of his figurative paintings, and will showcase the artist’s largest canvas to date. In this series, the artist plays around with each character, and depicts them as fictional conceptual artists engaged in an eccentric obsessive-compulsive practice in the midst of their own creative process.
Bas was born in Miami, but grew up mostly in suburban upstate Florida. At a young age, he was inspired by the books from the occult section that his older brother and sister brought home from elementary school. He was captivated by the stories on vampires, ghosts, Bigfoot, conspiracy theories, psychic abilities, the supernatural, and the unknown mysteries. Furthermore, his conception on homosexuality was one of an otherworldly creature, and he associated this with the paranormal realm. Later on in life, his continuous curiosity on bizarre oddities embarked him on collecting occult artifacts, such as Victorian mourning objects. He is also obsessed with flamingo magnets; this Florida native bird is seen in many of his artworks.
His paintings have a dark romantic undertone with erotic innuendos, and his characters are exclusively male figures. The young men depicted in his work are tall, skinny, and white. Growing up, the artist was influenced by a period in time when male models had the heroine chic look that was glamorized in the eighties and nineties. His characters are suspended in time; a twilight stage of both coming out and coming of age. The artist refers to this purgatory state between boyhood and manhood, and its sexual liberation as a “fag limbo”. Furthermore, his artworks are highly detailed with curious components. It often features a gloomy and lively landscape contrasted with wilting plants to suggest decadence in its interpretation.
In one of the “The Conceptualists” series paintings, Bas uses dark humor to portray a young artist in the middle of his craft holding a popsicle. His character’s creation is a coffin made up of hundreds of popsicle sticks stacked together that he himself had consumed in order to create his own artwork; possibly the cause of his death later on in life because he had too many.
The artist’s witty sense of humor is reflected in his double entendre in his paintings. For instance, in “Two Fruits” Bas portrays two young men who can be considered as the name of the title in which the term fruit may also imply someone who is a flamboyant homosexual. Ironically, there are two fruits of each type on top of the table.
Bas invites the viewer to interpret the state of existence of his male figures. Although there is no action in the painting, as well as no information on the storyline, the detailed composition in his paintings allow for an open-ended narrative, thus engaging the viewer to invent one of their own.
For more information on this exhibition, please visit www.thebass.org/art/
Conceptual artist #23 (Popsicle stick sculptor; a purist, he consumes his materials in devotion to his craft, leading to his inevitable last work), 2023.
Image by Silvia Ros via Lehmann Maupin
Conceptual artist #19 (A child of the 80's, he places his Polaroid self portraits in a familiar spot, whenever he's feeling lost), 2023.
Image by Silvia Ross via Lehmann Maupin
Two Fruits, 2015
Image via Perrotin
The flamingo farmer's son, 2014
Image via Lehmann Maupin
Cover image:
The Tampa Goth, 2019