Thomas Bayrle's Late-Career Renaissance and Retrospectives Explore Repetition, Religion, and Technology
At the age of seventy-eight, Thomas Bayrle is enjoying a resurgence in his career, highlighted by several retrospectives. His art, which fuses Pop aesthetics with systems theory, is showcased by galleries such as Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in New York and Dépendance in Brussels. In 2012, he designed decor for the Frieze Art Fair in London. Currently, he is working on a project that reinterprets Caravaggio’s The Calling of St Matthew as a triptych featuring digitally altered iPhones, which he considers “the new car,” probing their significance in religious contexts. His 2014 installation at Cologne’s Jesuit Church of St Peter included works like Madonna Crochet and Stroke by Stroke: The Wiper. Bayrle’s early pieces critiqued Nazism and capitalism, and he participated in Documenta 13 in 2012.
Key facts
- Thomas Bayrle is 78 years old and experiencing a late-career renaissance.
- He is preparing two retrospectives, with more planned.
- His galleries include Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in New York, Air de Paris, Barbara Weiss in Berlin, and Dépendance in Brussels.
- In 2012, he created decor for London’s Frieze Art Fair entryway.
- A current work reinterprets Caravaggio’s The Calling of St Matthew (1599–1600) using thousands of iPhones.
- He installed works in the Jesuit Church of St Peter in Cologne in 2014.
- His artistic inspiration began post-1949, connecting rosary prayers with machine rhythms.
- He was influenced by artist Peter Roehr in 1967 to pursue “neutral production.”
Entities
Artists
- Thomas Bayrle
- Jana Euler
- Heike Bayrle
- Peter Roehr
- Alf Bayrle
- Paul Noble
- Cy Twombly
- Andy Warhol
- Caravaggio
Institutions
- Gavin Brown’s Enterprise
- Air de Paris
- Barbara Weiss
- Dépendance
- Städelschule
- Frankfurt Art Fair
- Frieze Art Fair
- Jesuit Church of St Peter
- Documenta
- ArtReview
Locations
- Frankfurt
- Germany
- New York
- United States
- Berlin
- Brussels
- Belgium
- Sweden
- London
- United Kingdom
- Rome
- Italy
- Cologne
- Wiesbaden
- Birmingham
- Novgorod
- Russia
- China