This publication gathers a selection of around 130 never-before-published early works on paper from the Philadelphia-based artist Karen Kilimnik (born 1955), whose oeuvre encompasses paintings, photographs, drawings, sculptures and films, and explores themes of mythology and femininity, history and fiction.
Published by JRP|Ringier. Edited by Lionel Bovier. Text by Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, Dominic Molon.
This volume is an expanded edition of JRP|Ringier's popular 2006 reference monograph on Philadelphia-based artist Karen Kilimnik (born 1955). In the 1980s Kilimnik's jumbled narrative installations were compared by critics to the "scatter art" of the previous decade, but have become a cult for a younger generation of artists and exhibition curators. Her drawings and paintings from the beginning of the 1990s were included in the then-current discussions on art and glamour, and on the emergence of women artists whose sensibility was not driven by feminist theory. The source of numerous misunderstandings, the diversity of her work has veiled the internal coherence of a practice which increasingly attests to the continuous links between all these mediums. This book offers the complete panorama of Kilimnik's production and affords a view that goes beyond the distinctions between painting, drawing or installation.
Karen Kilimnik takes pictures with the same gesture she paints with: an unerring sense of the glut of shiny surface beauty, under which lurk the shades of monstrous things unseen and unspoken. She takes pictures with a shrewd, informed eye. She adores kitsch, but she knows how phony it is and how much this phoniness makes it irresistible. She is a wise old soul but she's absolutely determined to preserve the innocence and vulnerability of a young and restless mind. Kilimnik takes pictures of what she unconditionally loves, and this love is eclectic and deeply darkly romantic. She photographs idylls ad nauseam: the rolling hills of the Cotswolds in south central England, so leafy they almost seem unreal; a ladies' bicycle, hedge-lined streets, sheep in the shadow of a tree, cows in the morning mist, a squirrel that seems to be nibbling on a flower, sitting ducks on the banks of a stream. Kilimnik views profane reality through the mercilessly wide-open eyes of her camera lens, transforming it in her photographs into a stage for her fabulously dreamy / nightmarish fairytale figurations and arrangements. When reality does not suffice, she embellishes it, trimming the trees in the garden, for example, with glass Christmas ornaments or with fairy lights. Running through Kilimnik's photographic work are several motifs we know from her painting. And the two come together in her obsession with photographing details from her own paintings over and over again, such as the magnificent palace walls she has painted, as though beseeching us to agree that her painted fictions are no less real than so-called reality.
Published by Mills College Art Museum. Edited by Melissa E. Feldman. Text by Melissa E. Feldman, Jörg Heiser, Apollinaire Scherr.
Dance Rehearsal explores Philadelphia-born artist Karen Kilimnik’s longstanding engagement with historical performance, in particular the romantic story ballets of the nineteenth century. These timeless tales and their protagonists have been a key inspiration for Kilimnik since the beginning of her career. The multi-disciplinary elements that bring the performances and narratives to life, including music, choreography, dance and scenery can be found reflected in the diverse styles and mediums in which Kilimnik has worked. This publication, featuring pieces from 1988 to the present, encompasses this eclectic variety in more than 60 large-scale color reproductions, from figurative drawing and painting to mixed-media mise-en-scéne installations, collage, photography and video. Dance Rehearsal also introduces Kilimnik’s more recent forays into set design and choreography and includes texts by editor, critic and curator Melissa E. Feldman and others.
PUBLISHER Mills College Art Museum
BOOK FORMAT Hardcover, 8.75 x 11.5 in. / 96 pgs / 68 color.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 2/28/2013 Active
DISTRIBUTION D.A.P. Exclusive Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 127
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9780985460006FLAT40 List Price: $35.00 CAD $47.50 GBP £30.00
AVAILABILITY Out of stock
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
Published by Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Introduction by Claudia Gould. Text by Ingrid Schaffner, Scott Rothkopf, Joel Lobenthal, Dominic Molon, Wayne Koestenbaum.
Published on the occasion of the first major museum survey of Karen Kilimnik's work, a traveling exhibition with stops in Philadelphia, Miami, Aspen and Chicago, this chic but scholarly catalogue is the most substantial on the artist to date. It highlights an important American artist whose work objectifies mass-cultural desire with glittering poignancy and includes a nuanced selection of 15 years worth of collage-based activity in the realms of painting, drawing, photography, sculptural installation and object-making, as well as new work. Fully illustrated at 180 pages, it features an essay by exhibition curator Ingrid Schaffner which analyzes the development of the artist's work and its historic contexts as well as four contributions from authors who address a theme or image within the work. Thus, cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum addresses gossip; dance historian Joel Lobenthal writes on ballet; Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Dominic Molon, focuses on influence; and Artforum Senior Editor Scott Rothkopf considers Kilimnik's titles. Includes a complete bibliography and an illustrated exhibition chronology. Called "sharp and witty" and "long overdue" for major recognition by The New York Times' Holland Cotter, Kilimnik is an important international artist with an extensive publication and exhibition history. Born in Philadelphia in 1955, she studied architecture at Temple University and continues to live in the region. Since 1991, her work has been represented by 303 Gallery in New York. She has had recent solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Ireland, and White Cube, London. In 1992, ICA Philadelphia presented Kilimnik's first museum show as part of its "Investigations" series.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited by Scott Rothkopf, Meredith Martin.
Art history becomes Karen Kilimnik. As much as paint on canvas, it is the raw material of her pictures--though she wears it lightly, and with great élan. The title of this mini exhibition catalogue, published on the occasion of Kilimnik's show at London's Serpentine Gallery, derives from a popular sub-genre populated by "link boys" and "cottage girls." For when looking at Kilimnik's work since the late 1980s, and especially that of the last 10 years, one cannot help but be struck by her engagement with the history of painting. In this lightly illustrated volume, Meredith Martin, a scholar of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century art, speaks with Scott Rothkopf on Kilimnik's relationship to art history: if history is her raw material, then Kilimnik points as much to painting's future as its past, as much to our own world as to a bygone day.
Published by JRP|Ringier. Essays by Dominic Molon and Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith.
In the 1980s, critics compared Karen Kilimnik's narrative and jumbled installations to the previous decade's "scatter art," they have since become cult favorites of a new generation of artists and curators. Her drawings and paintings from the early 1990s targeted then-current discussions on art and glamour, and the emergence of women artists whose sensibility was not that of feminist theory. A portrait of Hugh Grant, post-arrest, was likened to Degas, Warhol and Jim Shaw's Thrift Store Paintings. More recently she's taken up fairy-tale themes, with dashing barons, tinkling chandeliers, wolves and sleighs--a magical world in which history, myth and reality coexist. The diversity of Kilimnik's work, which has continued to evolve, can veil the internal coherence of a practice in which the most recent pieces attest to continuous links through all previous media and subject matter. This comprehensive monograph offers a complete panorama of Kilimnik's career production, and allows readers to see beyond the distinctions between her paintings, drawings and installations.
Karen Kilimnik
Karen Kilimnik: Photographs
Dance Rehearsal: Karen Kilimnik's World of Ballet and Theatre
Karen Kilimnik
Karen Kilimnik's Fancy Pictures:
Karen Kilimnik