Michael Werner Gallery, New York is pleased to present cold tears released, an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by German-born, New York-based painter Florian Krewer.
Psychologists, philosophers, scientists, and artists have long explored and analyzed the connection between dreams and the creative process. Both dreamers and artists utilize symbols or archetypes to access underlying, universal feelings and desires. In Krewer’s new paintings, animals often embody emotions or events that are too powerful or painful to depict directly. The artist’s paintings are his salve to the cruelty of man in modern society, which he views as manifested in humanitarian issues like poverty, climate change, and oppression. To Krewer, man is more isolated and displaced than ever, and his paintings depict the injustices, as well as the joy and glimmers of hope, that he sees in the modern world.
Florian Krewer (born in Gerolstein, Germany in 1986) has exhibited around the world. Recent solo exhibitions include strike the dust, Michael Werner Gallery, Beverly Hills (2024); Nice Dog, M WOODS Museum, Beijing (2023); light the ocean, Michael Werner Gallery, New York (2023); everybody rise, Aspen Art Museum (2023); Es liebt Dich und Deine Körperlichkeit ein Verwirrter, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2022); and ride or fly, Michael Werner Gallery, London (2021). In 2022, Krewer was awarded the Prix Jean-François Prat by the Bredin Prat Foundation. His work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montréal; the Pinault Collection, Paris; the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Albertina Museum, Vienna. Krewer lives and works in the South Bronx, New York.
cold tears released opens to the public on Friday 5 September 2025 with an opening reception on Thursday 4 September 2025 from 6 to 8pm and will remain on view through Saturday 1 November 2025. The show will span both gallery locations in New York: 4 East 77th Street and 1018 Madison Avenue, 4th Floor. A catalogue with the text by Bruce Chatwin will accompany the exhibition.