Aaron Curry (b. 1972, San Antonio) makes sculptures and paintings whose relationship to modernism is productively fraught. Incorporating a wealth of elements from popular culture—science fiction, video games, cartoons—Curry has developed a body of work that is both a recognizable continuation of art historical narratives and a caustic, critical, and often hilarious take on the established order. In recent years he has produced a group of large-scale aluminum sculptures that upend the classical poise of Alexander Calder, foregrounding instead a surreal biomorphism and seemingly improvised compositional flair. These objects translate the hands-on immediacy of his earliest sculptures at a municipal scale, emphasizing the democratic fervor that animates his project. An ongoing collage of the lineages of Disney, Picasso, and Chicago Imagism, Curry’s work provides a funhouse-mirror vision of the future of the Western tradition.

Aaron Curry has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts (2017–2021); McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas (2019); STPI Creative Workshop & Gallery, Singapore (2018); Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2018); Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2014); CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, France (2014); Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York (2013); and High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2012). His work has been included in group exhibitions at Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2021); de la Cruz Collection, Miami (2019); and Jing’an Sculpture Park, Shanghai (2018). Curry’s work is in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art San DIego; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Seattle Art Museum, among many other institutions. Curry lives and works in Los Angeles.