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Julian Schnabel b. 1951 Mimi oil on linoleum mounted on wood panel with horns, in two parts 144 by 107 1/2 by 17 1/2 in. 365.8 by 273.1 by 44.5 cm. Executed in 1986. Provenance Pace Wildenstein, New York Exhibited New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Biennial 1987, April - July 1987, p. 121, illustrated in color Literature Irving Sandler, Art of the Post-Modern Era: From the Late 1960s to the Early 1990s, New York, 1996, p. 232, illustrated Mimi was prominently featured in the 1987 New York, Whitney Biennial. This landmark exhibition showcased works by an important generation of artists including among others, Richard Prince, Jeff Koons, Peter Halley and Philip Taaffe. Along with Julian Schnabel, these are just a few of the artists that personify the exuberant decade of the 1980s. Painted in typical heroic style, Mimi encompasses the full spectrum of Schnabel's Neo-expressionist vocabulary, from its fragmented imagery to its layers of iconography, text and meaning. Its formal premise too, the joined canvases, varied textures and collaged sculptural element, are highly characteristic of the artist's best paintings. Like Robert Rauschenberg's 1960s combine paintings, which embrace cultural references and celebrate the detritus of modern life as suitable content for painting, Schnabel's Mimi is an expansive, gestural work that celebrates art and life. Replete with obscure iconographies, the painting references childhood, the female body and fertility (seen in the horns placed strategically to suggest fallopian tubes). While its meaning remains obscure, Mimi exudes the artist's willful intent to reach out to the viewer and through paint, connect with the human psyche.