Brian Alfred Publication 2026 by Miles McEnery Gallery

BRIAN ALFRED

511 West 22nd Street

515 West 22nd Street

525 West 22nd Street

520 West 21st Street

New York NY 10011

PLUS ULTRA Samantha Chen There is no such thing as a neutral image, but there is plausible deniability. Brian Alfred’s work lives in this middle territory, appearing on the surface to reserve judgement. Something like Ernest Hemingway’s theory of omission appears to be at work: If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. This sense of loaded absence is a hallmark of Alfred’s work, which omits, and omits again, approaching some kind of deeper truth. There is, first, the omission of detail through visual flatness: solid blocks of color, hard-edged forms, and simplified compositions in the tradition of Utagawa Hiroshige’s ukiyo-e prints. The highly saturated palette lends the work a pop-adjacent, semicommercial sleekness reminiscent of 2000s era vector art; as in graphic design, Alfred seems similarly interested in not revealing authorial intent. Then, there is the omission of time itself: Scenes are frequently devoid of overt movement. Alfred’s worlds are quiet, soundless, and windless. They exist in suspended animation, before the decisive moment. Or before the kickoff, as it were. Alfred’s latest exhibition, “Plus Ultra,” explores the aesthetic of sports at a moment when sports feel like one of our last, unassailable sources of collective meaning. Elsewhere, contemporary life seems to be marked by ennui: waning future optimism, declining religiosity, and acquiescence to accelerationism. The show’s title, “Plus Ultra” (the motto of the Spanish National Football Team, meaning “Further Beyond”), aptly captures this sense of wayward momentum. We are progressing rapidly toward something, but it is unclear what. As a culture we find ourselves, as with Alfred’s paintings, in an in-between state.

Sports have emerged as a repository for much of that displaced meaning. In a world of manufactured experiences, we yearn for the unpredictability of gameplay and the face-melting spectacle of the next great sports feat. Both the Olympics and the World Cup retain a rare capacity to produce positive global feelings despite their well-known controversies. This is the essential myth of sports culture: That it allows us to transcend, however briefly, pedestrian baggage and our partisan selves.

The reality, however, is more complicated. Sports is one of the most loaded and propagandized visual subjects on earth. “Plus Ultra” grapples with what omission can do with a genre of imagery uniquely resistant to decontextualization: Can we truly separate a sport’s aesthetics from its context? In some instances that is almost impossible. Take, for instance, Alfred’s portraits of prominent athletes like Shohei Ohtani, Lewis Hamilton, and Eileen Gu. Rendered in a graphic style reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s silkscreen portraits—solid black outlines, dimensionless skin tones, posterized backgrounds— these figures appear to us stripped of most contextualizing detail. Yet, much like Warhol’s celebrities, recognizability defeats form; these faces are inseparable from the cultural and political context from which they emerged. Depictions of the iconic do not escape prior associations so much as they canonize them, and Alfred’s portraits, simplified as they are, are no exception. Other types of sports imagery are more amenable to omission. Alfred’s depopulated sports venues appear to test how far this imagery can be abstracted before it loses legibility. There is his painting V.C. (2026), for instance, where the edge of a volleyball court is transformed through framing and lack of foreshortening into a series of nested rectangles, eye-wateringly neon. Another painting, The Rink (2026), depicts the simple contours and lines of a bare hockey rink where a wavelength shaped smudge in the corner suggests onlookers. One particular piece, Paris Sk8 (2025), is so simplified that it takes a moment to decode it: A skate course is tightly cropped into something pleasingly repetitive, like a single square within an infinitely tiled pattern. Little departures from reality—an eerie stillness, a nonexistent court design, an impossible color scheme—reframe these venues as abstractions. Works like Indoor (2026) push this idea further by

entirely departing from reality. In it, sunlight streams onto a still pool in an invented gymnasium, casting a prismatic glare onto the stands and ceiling. The scene’s art deco hues and choppy shapes have the dreamy aura of a childhood-era video-game environment, at once nostalgic and artificial. In all these paintings, omission highlights how spaces function as conceptual waiting rooms: Venues take on their power and relevance because of what they are used for. Without gameplay to anoint these silent stadiums, these courts may as well be abstract designs—randomly generated graphic lines and color fields. In other instances, the primary intent seems to be emotional distillation rather than decontextualization; omission can also lay bare one’s feelings towards a subject. This comes across in Alfred’s approach to soccer imagery, a personal touchstone. As a longtime player and the co-founder of Triboro United Soccer Club, a nonprofit Brooklyn- and Queens-based youth soccer club, his proximity to the sport subtly alters his approach. Elsewhere, his works read as rather serene but here, his depictions run a bit more dynamic: Spectators appear with some regularity as amorphous cheering forms or, in the case of Tifo (2025), as literal square pixels brandishing a monumental Real Madrid tifo. Much like the real-life displays, the banner’s scale overwhelms the canvas, creating a similarly imposing effect. In another painting, Victory (2026), one of his classically depopulated soccer stadiums (in this case the home of Bayern Munich) is foregrounded by a rain of identically sized, evenly spaced confetti. There is a clear high-spiritedness to both images, albeit still held in check by form. The stadiums lack gameplay, and the confetti is pattern-like in its uniformity; still, an exuberance shines through. This idea of using omission to isolate a latent feeling is explored further in Alfred’s animation Ultras! (2026), the show’s only moving work. Derived by combining the artist’s own footage with found footage, the work consists of looped animations tracing the mesmerizing movement of crowds at live events. These gestural animations omit detail in a way that heightens their visceral intensity: fans are shown as a single breathing mass of color, and the looping video format amplifies the crowd’s restlessness and uncontained power. In one particularly arresting loop, a stadium is lit up in red-orange hues that radiate out ominously like smoke (Alfred explained that this was a flare that had ended up in the

stands and briefly caught fire). This vignette gestures at yet another dimension of spectatorship: The loss of control. The exuberance of the crowd could turn sour at a moment’s notice; a rapturous experience could turn frightening. This latent unruliness comes to a head in The Ultras! (2026), a large triptych that stands tonally apart within the exhibition. If Alfred’s other works feign impartiality, this work’s fiery color scheme and masked figures express clear momentum and unease. A crowd of masked figures press forward through a hazy, smoke-filled scene, gesturing at something to the left of the canvas. A lit match is visible in one corner while a streak of light descends in another: a flare, a projectile? The influence of Picasso’s Guernica (1937) is tonally present—another chaotic scene that does not show the decisive event itself but rather its aftermath. Alfred’s choice of moment omits the before and the after, sharpening this sense of precarity. We have again arrived at a threshold, waiting to see what comes next.

If other works omit context and superfluous detail, Stadium Approach (2025) experiments with omitting the central subject matter itself. In it, a cloud-filled sky at dusk fills the canvas, looming over a small slice of dark highway. There is something of Allan d’Archangelo’s roadway paintings in its meditative atmosphere, a sense of moving through a vast and alienating landscape. In the bottom right, easily missed, is the upturned lip of a stadium. We are en route to a game that has yet to begin, catching our first glimpse of the venue on the horizon. The only literal depiction of sports is the stadium’s silhouette but that sense of anticipation remains, suggesting that the aura of sports extends beyond the activity itself—perhaps even beyond its literal imagery. The future game looms large in our imagination precisely because it is not shown; it remains perfect in its possibility. Anything could happen. Throughout the show, Alfred’s works omit and omit again, only to circle back to this sense of perpetual anticipation. We are repeatedly brought into scenes on the cusp of something - empty stadiums waiting for gameplay, confetti that hangs midair, crowds that churn restlessly - and asked to consider what it means to stay at the threshold forever. Here, hope springs eternal; everything is possible,

and one cannot lose a game that has yet to begin. Alfred insists there is meaning to be found in the sustained, attentive act of moving continuously towards something, to returning to the threshold as practice. What pleasure is there in resolution? Any fan will tell you that the precipice is the life-affirming part – that which draws us in again and again.

Samantha Chen is a culture writer and content creator based in NYC. She writes about contemporary media, technology and the role of art in our increasingly online lives.

Paris Sk8, 2025 Acrylic on canvas 62 x 74 inches 158 x 188 cm

Stadium Approach, 2025

Acrylic on canvas 72 x 82 1/2 inches 183 x 210 cm

The Sailors, 2025 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 50 inches 152 x 127 cm

The Spectator, 2025

Acrylic on canvas 60 x 50 inches 152 x 127 cm

Tifo, 2025 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 50 inches 152 x 127 cm

Court Entrance, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 74 x 62 inches 188 x 158 cm

Glider, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 42 x 38 inches 107 x 97 cm

Green Chant, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 50 inches 152 x 127 cm

Indoor, 2026

Acrylic on canvas 72 x 80 inches 183 x 203 cm

Jai-Alai, 2026

Acrylic on canvas 42 x 38 inches 107 x 97 cm

Marathon, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 42 x 38 inches 107 x 97 cm

Plus Ultra, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 12 x 9 inches 31 x 23 cm

Pool, 2026

Acrylic on canvas 62 x 74 inches 158 x 188 cm

Porto, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 30 inches 102 x 76 cm

Sunset Hoops, 2026

Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches 61 x 61 cm

The Rink, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 30 inches 102 x 76 cm

The Slopes, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 30 inches 102 x 76 cm

The Ultras!, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 150 inches 152 x 381 cm

V.C., 2026 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 30 inches 102 x 76 cm

Victory, 2026

Acrylic on canvas 72 x 80 inches 183 x 203 cm

Eileen Gu, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Kerolin, 2026

Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Lewis Hamilton, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Nyjah Huston, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Rafael Leão, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Serge Gnabry, 2026

Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Shohei Ohtani, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Suni Lee, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Victor Wembanyama, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Yeon Koung Kim, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Yuto Horigome, 2026

Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches 86 x 71 cm

Brain Alfred

EDUCATION

2015 “It Takes A Million Years To Become Diamonds So Let’s Just Burn Like Coal Until The Sky Is Black,” Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY

1999 MFA, Yale University, New Haven, CT Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME

2014 “New Animations,” Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel “Beauty in Danger,” Salon 94 Video Wall, New York, NY

1997 BFA, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

2013 “Storms and Stress,” Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012 “It’s Already the End of the World,” Frist Center for Visual Art, Nashville, TN

Born in 1974 in Pittsburgh, PA Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

2026 “Plus Ultra,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY 2024 “You Could Feel The Sky,” Williamsburg Biannual, Brooklyn, NY “Golden Hour,” Maho Kubota Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “Beauty Is a Rare Thing,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY 2022 “Escape Plan,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY 2021 “New World,” Maho Kubota Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 2019 “High Rises and Double Vision: Images of New York,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY 2016 “In Praise of Shadows,” Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY

2011 “Co-op,” Giraud Pissarro Ségalot, New York, NY “Rise Above,” Haunch of Venison, London, United Kingdom 2010 “It’s Already the End of the World,” Haunch of Venison, New York, NY 2009 “Majic Window,” Studio La Città, Verona, Italy 2008 “Millions Now Living Will Never Die!!!,” Haunch of Venison, Berlin, Germany 2007 “Global Warning,” SCAI the Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan 2006 “Surveillance,” Haunch of Venison, Zürich, Switzerland “Space is the Place!,” Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY

2005 “Paper and Pixels,” Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY “Conspiracy?,” Haunch of Venison, London, United Kingdom 2004 “The Future is Now!,” Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ “Overload,” Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY “Fallout,” Samek Art Gallery, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA

2020 “Do You Think It Needs A Cloud?,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY “VIDEOTOPIA,” Maho Kubota Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

2002 Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

2019 “Fixed Contained,” Kotaro Nukaga Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “Alex Katz, Brian Alfred, Guy Yanai, Laurel Nakadate, Taro Komiya, Ryunosuke Yasui: Door Into Summer / M’s collection +,” Maho Kubota Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Rag & Bone Mural, Houston Street, New York, NY “Art on Link,” Art on LINK/NYC Kiosks, New York, NY

2000 Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY

2018 “Belief in Giants,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2017 “The Frame,” Samsung Art TV, Samsung, USA “Like Oxygen,” Blue Mountain Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2003 “New Work,” Sandroni Rey Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2021 “Transformed: Objects Reimagined by American Artists,” Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ

2025 “Paper Room,” Halsey McKay Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2024 “All Bangers, All The Time: 25th Anniversary Exhibition,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY “MADE in PA,” Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 2022 “CITY - COUNTRY - CONNECTIVITY,” KUNST für ANGELN e.V. | Wittkielhof, Angeln, Germany “Island Time,” Volery Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates “Why I Make Art” (curated by Brian Alfred), Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY “HOME/STUDIO,” Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

2016 “Room with a View,” EDDYSROOM, Brooklyn, NY “Art Film,” Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL “Tokyo / London / New York,” Maho Kubota Gallery, Tokyo, Japan “Audacious: Contemporary Artists Speak Out,” Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO “Genbi Shinkansen,” Echigo Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture, Japan “In an Illusion Village: Our Form Connected by Media Art,” Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori, Japan “Extended Practice,” Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 2015 “BLACK / WHITE,” Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY

“The Search For The Real,” DeBuck Gallery, New York, NY “Villissima,” Hôtel Des Arts, Toulon, France “The Everywhere Exotic,” Culturadora, Art Miami NY, New York, NY 2014 “BLACK/WHITE,” LaMontagne Gallery, Boston, MA “Art Film,” Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China “100 Works for 100 Years: A Centennial Celebration,” Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ “Mercury Retrograde: Animated Realities,” Lafayette Art Galleries, Lafayette College, Easton, PA “Film Cologne,” Art Cologne, Cologne, Germany 2013 “Uncanny Congruencies,” Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA “Art Film,” Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami Beach, FL “Mercury Retrograde: Animated Realities,” Stephen Stoyanov Gallery, New York, NY “Epic Fail,” Storefront Ten Eyck, Brooklyn, NY 2012 “exURBAN SCREENS,” Frankston Arts Centre/Cube 37, Melbourne, Australia 15th Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo, Japan “Sourced,” Steven Vail Fine Arts, Des Moines, IA 2011 “Beyond,” SCAI the Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan “Videosphere: A New Generation,” Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY “Animations,” The Big Screen Project, Big Screen Plaza, New York, NY “Printer’s Proof,” Bertrand Delacroix Gallery, New York, NY 2010 “12th International Cairo Biennale,” Cairo, Egypt “The Big Screen Project,” Big Screen Plaza, New York, NY “Me, Undoubtedly. 1309 Faces,” Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany

“Aichi Triennale,” Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan “Surface Tension,” South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN “onedotzero,” Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY “New Art For A New Century,” Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA 2009 “Mercury Retrograde: Animated Realities,” Big Medium Gallery, Austin, TX “The Figure and Dr. Freud,” Haunch of Venison, New York, NY 2008 “Uncoordinated: Mapping Cartography in Contemporary Art,” Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH “Ru Ru Ru Landscape: How I see the World Around Me,” Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan “Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks,” Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark 2007 “The Shapes of Space,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY “System Error: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning,” Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena, Italy “Art Fair Tokyo,” Tokyo, Japan “Art Film,” Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland 2006 “The 59th Minute, Times Square Panasonic Astrovision Screen,” Creative Time, New York, NY “Invitational Exhibition,” American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY “Radar: Selections from the Kent and Vicki Logan Collection,” Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO “New Code,” Studio La Città, Verona, Italy

“Signal Channel: Contemporary Video Art,” Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE

“The Seach for the Real,” De Buck Gallery, New York, NY

2005 “Produced at Eyebeam,” Eyebeam, New York, NY “Surface,” Lucas Schoormans Gallery, New York, NY “ART!+*><WORK,” Ignivomous, New York, NY

2014 “BLACK/WHITE,” LaMontagne Gallery, Boston, MA

2004 “Metropolis,” National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia “Art and Architecture 1900 – 2000,” Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, Italy “Inaugural Show,” Sandroni Rey Gallery, Los Angeles, CA “Trouble in Paradise,” Van Brunt Gallery, New York, NY “Happy Ending,” Kingfisher Projects, Queens, NY

2018 College of Arts & Architecture Faculty Research Grant, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

2003 “Toxic,” Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY “Digital Showcase,” Austin Museum of Digital Art, Austin, TX 1999 “Group Show,” Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY “MFA Thesis Exhibition,” Yale School of Art Gallery, Yale University, New Haven, CT

AWARDS

2016 College of Arts & Architecture Faculty Research Grant, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 2015 Institute for the Arts and Humanities Individual Faculty Grant, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA Jerome Foundation Grant, St. Paul, MN 2013 Carriage House Arts Residency, Islip, NY Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York, NY

CURATORIAL WORK

2011 Excellence Award, Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo, Japan

2022 “Why I Make Art,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

2008 Pennsylvania State University Alumni Award, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

2016 “Animated! Explorations into Moving Pictures,” Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

2006 Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, New York, NY American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award, New York, NY Pennsylvania State University Alumni Achievement Award, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

2015 “BLACK / WHITE,” Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, New York, NY

2005 New York Foundation of the Arts Inspiration Award, New York, NY

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

2003 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York, NY

Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN

1999 Phelps Berdan Memorial Award, Yale University, New Haven, CT Skowhegan Match Scholarship, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME 1997 Edwin W. Zoller Scholarship, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA SELECT COLLECTIONS Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY Cleveland Clinic Art Program, Lyndhurst, OH Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA Phoenix Museum of Art, Phoenix, AZ San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

University Museum of Contemporary Art, Amherst, MA

Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Corporate Art Collection, Des Moines, IA Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY SOUND & VISION PODCAST Brian Alfred is the host of “SOUND & VISION,” a podcast of conversations with artists and musicians about the creative process. Guests have included Diana Al-Hadid, Jules de Balincourt, Inka Essenhigh, Dominique Fung, Daniel Heidkamp, Ridley Howard, Kahlil Robert Irving, Byron Kim, Hein Koh, Chris Martin, Tony Matelli, Leeza Meksin, Hilary Pecis, James Siena, Sarah Slappey, Alexandria Smith, Fred Tomaselli, and Chloe Wise.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition

BRIAN ALFRED PLUS ULTRA 25 June – 14 August 2026 Miles McEnery Gallery 515 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011 tel +1 212 445 0051 www.milesmcenery.com Publication © 2026 Miles McEnery Gallery All rights reserved Essay © 2026 Samantha Chen

Associate Director Julia Schlank, New York, NY Photography by Dan Bradica, New York, NY Christopher Burke Studios, Los Angeles, CA ISBN: 979-8-3507-6505-2 Cover: Indoor, (detail), 2026