Mike Bidlo (b. 1953, USA) is known for his replications of masterworks and is described in a Moderna Museet pamphlet from 1986 as “a forger, cannibal, re-creator, copyist, ‘appropriationist’”.
Bidlo is an internationally established artist who has, during his long career, recreated several important 20th century art historical events and works. Bidlo began his career in 1982 when he was awarded a studio at MoMA PS1, where he staged ‘Jack the Dripper at Peg’s Place’. The installation was a re-enactment of the time Jackson Pollock used Peggy Guggenheim’s fireplace as a urinal. The following years he studied Jackson Pollock’s painting, which resulted in works included in the series ‘Not Pollock’.
In 1985 Bidlo commenced ‘Not Klein’, a performance series based on Yves Klein’s ‘Anthropométries de l’époque bleue’, performed in Paris at the Galerie Internationale d’Art Contemporain on the 9th of March 1960. The show ‘Not Klein’ was performed on four occasions; 1985 in New York City, 1986 at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, 1988 in Tokyo, and 1989 in Seattle. Like Klein Bidlo also wore a tuxedo and white gloves, and was assisted by three nude models acting as paintbrushes. He directed them on a stage whilst an orchestra of twenty musicians performed Klein’s ‘Symphonie monotone’.
The piece in the auction was bought at the event at Moderna Museet in Stockholm on the 9th of October, 1986, and has been with the same owner ever since.
Other art events and works recreated by Bidlo include Andy Warhol’s Factory, where he played Warhol and thirty-nine of his friends took the roles of various personalities surrounding Warhol. He did a full size version of Picasso’s Guernica, and created a series of paintings entitled ‘Picasso’s Women 1901-1971’, which were exhibited in 1988 at Leo Castelli Gallery and which are now being sold for millions. Georgia O’Keeffe, Magritte, Léger, Brancusi and Duchamp are some of the many well-established artists that Bidlo has appropriated. In 2022 Bidlo had a major retrospective, ‘Nostalgia for Scandal’, at Galleria Mazzoli, Modena, exhibiting sixteen artworks created between 1984 and 2022. His work is included in several museum collections and has been exhibited across the world.