One Night Only: Ellen Berkenblit

Ellen Berkenblit (born 1958 in Paterson, New Jersey) is an American painter who lives and works in New York City. Her work is included in the public collections of the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. In 2013 she received an award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2014 was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship. Berkenblit’s first large-scale mural Leopard’s Lane (2019) is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, as part of The Atrium Project organized by the James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator Michael Darling. Berkenblit is represented by Anton Kern Gallery. 

For her One Night Only celebration, Berkenblit’s new work continues to expand upon her use of stark imagery and intuitive color to conjure ambiguous narratives. Pushing motif to a near psychological breaking point, Berkenblit’s newest paintings evoke a manic state situated within an intimate setting. 

Underscoring the paintings’ visual language, Berkenblit will debut a site specific installation which functions to unsettle visitors, disrupting their sense of scale through the use of altered everyday objects. Wildly imaginative and critically acclaimed, Berkenblit and her work are a New York institution, with this being the artist’s first solo presentation in Texas. Ellen Berkenblit will be in attendance. 

One Night Only is a national curatorial project by Bronx based artist Arthur Peña. Previous One Night Only celebrations include Carrie Moyer and Nicole Eisenman. One Night Only is an inclusive endeavor during divisive times. One Night Only currently resides in a historic, private residence. The shotgun style home is owned and operated by Shotgun Collective and acts as an arts incubator for The Cedars community of Dallas, TX and beyond.