Pieter Schoolwerth was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1970. After graduating from the California Institute of the Arts in 1994, he moved to New York and now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. From 2003 to 2013, Schoolwerth founded and ran Wierd Records, a now legendary institution based out of New York’s Lower East Side that released music by 46 bands and produced over 500 live shows and performance events.
Schoolwerth’s wide-ranging and layered art practice is bound together by a spirit of restless experimentation that often explores how the human body is represented in a constantly mutating world. From minimal and expressionistic reinterpretations of Old Masters paintings to NFTs created from purchased and wildly retooled 3D figures and backdrops, Schoolwerth’s distinct bodies of work are united in their resolve to push the craft of art-making forward with investigations in form and technology. His paintings, sculpture, films, and collages are often created using multi-stepped techniques that weave together different materials and processes, both analogue and digital. Though forward thinking, Schoolwerth creates pieces that have an acute understanding of historic visual movements and has referenced Bruegel, Caravaggio, Hans Arp, and Louise Nevelson.
In 2021, the Hannover Kunstverein opened the largest survey of Schoolwerth’s work to date organized by Kathleen Rahn: No Body Get a Head, 1991–2020. Other notable exhibitions have taken place at Capitain Petzel, Berlin; Greene Naftali, New York; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin; Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York; Thread Waxing Space, New York; Twelve Ten Gallery, Chicago; and What Pipeline, Detroit.
In 2018, Schoolwerth participated in the inaugural FRONT International in Cleveland. His work has also been featured in exhibitions at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Whitney Museum, New York, among others.
His work is in the permanent collections of the Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; Denver Art Museum; Hall Art Foundation, Reading, Vermont & Derneburg, Germany; Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Phoenix Art Museum; Pinault Collection, Paris; Sammlung Boros, Berlin; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and more.
“I’ve always been interested in the ways in which the ever-changing, and often invisible, forces of abstraction in the world affect the task of representing the human body. I’ve come to use the photographed shadow to represent the performance of your digital body when we’re not together.”
Pieter Schoolwerth
Wierd Records
1970 Schoolwerth is born in St Louis, Missouri.
1994 After graduating from the California Institute of the Arts, he moves to New York. Within the year, he has his first exhibition at Thread Waxing Space.
1997 His work is included in Gothic, a group show at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
2003 Schoolwerth founds Wierd Records. In the next decade it will release music by 46 bands and host over 500 live events.
2006 The Museum of Modern Art, New York screens work by Schoolwerth as part of the series TOMORROWLAND: CalArts in Moving Pictures.
2008 Schoolwerth co-authors “Wierd Manifesto: The Analogue Synthesizer as a Folk Instrument of Humanist Resistance.”
2010 Debuts his “Portraits of Paintings” series, a major turning point for his practice that employs digital techniques to use Old Masters imagery as raw material.
2016 Schoolwerth is included in Dreamlands – a major survey of immersive cinema – at the Whitney Museum, New York.
Installation view, “No Body Get a Head” show at Kunstverein Hannover featuring work from 1991–2020
2018 Participates in the inaugural FRONT International Triennial in Cleveland.
2020 For his first show at Petzel, Schoolwerth exhibits his new series Shifted Sims.
2021 The largest survey of Schoolwerth’s takes place at the Kunstverein Hannover: No Body Get a Head, 1991–2020.
2021 Lucy & Aaron – an exhibition of work inspired by the eponymous record by Aaron Dilloway and Lucrecia Dalt – takes place at Hanson Records in Oberlin, Ohio.
2022 Schoolwerth’s series Rigged debuts at Petzel, New York and Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin.
2024 Between Pixel and Pigment. Hybrid Painting in Postdigital Times at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld and MARTa Herford, Germany includes a significant selection of work by Schoolwerth.
2024 Schoolwerth’s third Petzel exhibition Supporting Actor includes the debut of a new film collaboration with Phil Vanderhyden.
2024 Opening in November, work by Schoolwerth is included in the Jamillah James-organized The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970–2020 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Pieter Schoolwerth
Fucking Bananas (Rigged #27)
2022
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
90 x 97 inches
228.6 x 246.4 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Sharon is Karen (Rigged #23)
2022
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
80 x 90 inches
203.2 x 228.6 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Unicorn Beach Platform (Rigged #15)
2021
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
79 x 72 inches
200.7 x 182.9 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Today’s Outside Critique (Rigged #13)
2021
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
66 x 57.5 inches
167.6 x 146.1 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Testicular Momentum (Rigged #7)
2021
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
72 x 86 inches
182.9 x 218.4 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Diamond Residence (Rigged #3)
2021
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
67.5 x 64.25 inches
171.5 x 163.2 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Shifted Sims #6 (Tropical Romance Island Community Event)
2020
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
70 x 58.5 inches
177.8 x 148.6 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Shifted Sims #1 (Get Together)
2020
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
54 x 93 inches
137.2 x 236.2 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Shifted Sims #14 (Luxury Party Stuff)
2020
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
80 x 112 inches
203.2 x 284.5 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Behavioral Surplus Capture #2
2019
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
73 x 58 inches
185.4 x 147.3 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Remote Tribalism
2019
Oil, acrylic, inkjet on canvas
83 x 72 inches
210.8 x 182.9 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Fake Followers
2018
Oil, acrylic, and inkjet print on canvas
88 x 90 inches
223.5 x 228.6 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth, Taylor Shields, Alexander Carver, Avery Singer
Virtual Model for “Bubble Revision”
2018
HD Video, color
4 minutes 10 seconds
Edition of 5, 1 AP
Pieter Schoolwerth
The Casting Agent
2017
HD, color
16:9, 6 mins. 35 secs.
Edition of 6, 1 AP
Pieter Schoolwerth
Model for "The Casting Agent"
2017
Garment and latex on wood, AP1 of "The Casting Agent" video
53 x 242 x 48 inches
134.6 x 614.7 x 121.9 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Model for “Underground”
2017
Enamel on wood
49 x 59 x 7 1/4 inches
124.5 x 149.9 x 18.4 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Leave/Remain #3
2016
Oil, acrylic, and inkjet print on canvas
58 x 78 inches
147.3 x 198.1 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Model for "Green Model of a Couple Arguing about Their Abysmal Financial Situation"
2016
Enamel on wood
46 3/4 x 62 1/4 x 6 5/8 inches
118.7 x 158.1 x 16.8 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
No Body Gets a Head #3
2015
Oil, acrylic, and inkjet print on canvas
84 x 110 inches
213.4 x 279.4 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Take Out #6
2015
Oil, acrylic, and inkjet on canvas
41 x 43 inches
104.1 x 109.2 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Untitled
2015
Oil, acrylic, and inkjet print on canvas
90 x 115 inches
228.6 x 292.1 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth and Alexandra Lerman
Your Vacuum Sucks
2015
HD, color
16:9, 39 mins.
Edition of 6, 1 AP
Pieter Schoolwerth
Shadows Past 8
2013
Oil, inkjet print and oil pastel on canvas
83 x 58 inches
210.8 x 147.3 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
After Troy 4 (Vouet)
2012
Oil, inkjet print and oil pastel on canvas
72 1/2 x 54 inches
184.2 x 137.2 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Portrait of "The Fortune Teller", Schematic (after Manfredi)
2011
Oil on linen
48 x 63 inches
121.9 x 160 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
Session
2005
Oil on linen
93 x 87 inches
236.2 x 221 cm
Pieter Schoolwerth
The Appointments Become Her
2003
Oil on canvas
85 x 104 inches
215.9 x 264.2 cm
Between pixel and pigment: Hybrid painting in post-digital times. Installation view, 2024. MARTa Herford, Germany.
Bodies, Grids and Ecstasy. Installation view, 2023. KAI 10 | Arthena Foundation, Düsseldorf. Photo: Achim Kukulies.
Installation view, 2022. Boros Collection, Berlin. Photo: Noshe.
Pieter Schoolwerth: No Body Get a Head, 1991–2020. Installation view, 2021. Kunstverein Hannover. Photo: Raimund Zakowski.
Pieter Schoolwerth: No Body Get a Head, 1991–2020. Installation view, 2021. Kunstverein Hannover.
Pieter Schoolwerth: No Body Get a Head, 1991–2020. Installation view, 2021. Kunstverein Hannover.
Pieter Schoolwerth: No Body Get a Head, 1991–2020. Installation view, 2021. Kunstverein Hannover.
Pieter Schoolwerth: No Body Get a Head, 1991–2020. Installation view, 2021. Kunstverein Hannover. Photo: Raimund Zakowski.
Pieter Schoolwerth: Lucy & Aaron. Installation view, 2021. Hanson Records, Oberlin, Ohio.
Pieter Schoolwerth: Lucy & Aaron. Installation view, 2021. Hanson Records, Oberlin, Ohio.
Pieter Schoolwerth: Lucy & Aaron. Installation view, 2021. Hanson Records, Oberlin, Ohio.
Pieter Schoolwerth: After Troy. Installation view, 2012. Miguel Abreu, New York.
Pieter Schoolwerth: After Troy. Installation view, 2012. Miguel Abreu, New York.
Pieter Schoolwerth: Portraits of Paintings. Installation view, 2010. Miguel Abreu, New York.
Pieter Schoolwerth: The Z-axis Cycle. Installation view, 2009. Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York.
Pieter Schoolwerth. Installation view, 2000. American Fine Arts, New York.
