Adam Pendleton brings radical abstraction to Langen Foundation

Langen Foundation is presenting Adam Pendleton: Can I Be?, a major solo exhibition that explores abstraction, language, and history—examining how these forces converge in unlikely and poetic ways. Pendleton, a central figure in contemporary American art, is known for paintings that have redefined the boundaries of abstraction. Upending linear compositional logic, his paintings are created through a distilled layering of gesture, fragment, and form. Each work comes to life through expressionistic flourishes, stark contrasts, and subtle uses of material, tone, and finish, combined with a precision reminiscent of Minimal and Conceptual art. In 2008, he began to define his working method as ‘Black Dada’—a critical framework for exploring the relationship between Blackness, abstraction, and the historical avant-gardes—for which he is now widely recognized. The exhibition opens with a monumental black pavilion containing Pendleton’s video work Toy