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Bones and Trumpets Rubbing Against Each Other Towards Infinity

1981
Not on view
At the forefront of the Neo-Expressionism of the 1980s, Julian Schnabel’s paintings applied the monumental scale and vigorous brushwork of 1950s Abstract Expressionism to figurative painting. He first became famous for his "plate paintings," in which shards of pottery and other everyday materials appear as both objects and as the ground for painted imagery. Here, a tree with musical instruments for branches is outlined, like a cave painting, against an uneven background of red paint, broken pots, wood, and even a deer’s antler and hoof. By relating the musical and visual arts to both violence and the ancient past, the work suggests that painting today retains its original power as a vehicle of human expression.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Bones and Trumpets Rubbing Against Each Other Towards Infinity
  • Artist: Julian Schnabel (American, born Brooklyn, New York, 1951)
  • Date: 1981
  • Medium: Plaster, glazed and unglazed ceramic, cervidae antlers, cervidae leg/hoof, oil paint and wax on wood.
  • Dimensions: 9 × 13 ft. (274.3 × 396.2 cm)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Gift of The American Contemporary Art Foundation Inc., Leonard A. Lauder, President, 2016
  • Object Number: 2016.404a–d
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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