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Kim Abeles • Studio Newsletter • Spring 2016 Kim Abeles: Portraits and Autobiographies PØST March 20 – May 21, 2016 Reception: Sunday, March 20,
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 "Self-portrait with Files" (1998) |
Kim Abeles: Portraits and Autobiographies
PØST
March 20 – May 21, 2016
Reception:
Sunday, March 20, 2pm – 5pm
PØST has a new location in the historical Bendix Building in DTLA.
1206 Maple Avenue, #515
Los Angeles, CA 90015, USA
Hours: Thursday – Sunday
12pm – 6pm and by appointment
Link to Press Release for the exhibit |
 Top: Viewers checking out the smog images on dinner plates at Kunsthal KAdE. Photo credit: Mike Bink Bottom: Detail of "Dinner for Two in One Month of Smog" (2011) Photo credit: Ken Marchionno |
De loop der dingen / The Way things go
Curated by Judith van Meeuwen and Nynke Besemer
Kunsthal KAdE
Amersfoort, The Netherlands
January 23 - May 1, 2016
Link to Kunsthal KAdE website |
 "Disney Color Wheel for Good and Evil, Rich and Poor” (1999) Edition of 10; Collage from Disney story books with characters organized by good, evil, rich and poor; copper spinning hands; zinc plate; Disney D in ultrachrome print of currency, 4” x 4.25” |
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Tight Squeeze
Curated by Barry Markowitz
An exhibition and fundraiser for LACHSA Visual Arts Department
Armory Center for the Arts, 145 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena
February 20 - March 26, 2016 |
The Conversation: an Artist Podcast is a project by Los Angeles artist Michael Shaw creating “artist interviews and three-way roundtables with artists, art writers, dealers, and collectors…conversations from the art world’s back rooms.” |
 Top: "Walk a mile in my shoes" (2014) Commissioned by City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and Department of Public Works. Photo credit: Juan Patiño; Abeles' studio on 4th Floor of the Victor Clothing Building, Broadway and Second, DTLA, circa 1980 |
Link to podcast Ep. #126: Kim Abeles
Michael Shaw's description: "Veteran Los Angeles artist Kim Abeles on: living in downtown L.A. in the early days, from the late ’70s to now; her smog project, in which she lets objects including fine dishware blacken on the roof of her building from smog and car exhaust; her public art works, including Walk a mile in my shoes, a sculptural tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. that finished at his eponymous Boulevard; her 96-year-old mother, who lives on her own in L.A.’s Little Tokyo, through Kim’s doing; and her move to finally buy a place with her husband, photographer – Ken Marchionno, in Crestline, in the mountains about 90 minutes outside of L.A." |
 "Enchanted Forest Infrared" (2012) Ultrachrome print of Newport Beach, California; model trees, 73" x 12" x 12" |
Demarcate: Territorial shift in personal and societal mapping
Curated by Donna Napper and Emily Fayet
Institute of Contemporary Art
San Jose
February 28 - May 28, 2016
Link to ICA website |
 Detail of "Give Us This Day (Twenty Days of Smog and Acid Rain)" (1992) Particulate matter (smog) and acid air effect of silk; menu made of smog on glass; chairs made of chiffon on metal framework, table size: 30" x 52" |
Vanishing Beauty
Curated by Gayle Paul
Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center
Portsmouth, Virginia
February 27 - June 5, 2016
From the exhibition statement: "Portsmouth, Virginia is located in a region that is second to New Orleans in being at risk to sea-level rise. In addition to the rising seas, this area is also sinking. Vanishing Beauty features work by artists who are dealing with rising seas along with mountain-top removal for extraction of the earth's resources, coal, uranium and more." |
 Top: "Forty Days and Forty Nights (Forty Days of Smog)" (1991) Smog on glass; car mufflers; wood and mixed media construction; chiffon chairs, 31-1/2" x 30" x 56"; Bottom: "Zoe's Highchair (Forty Days of Smog)" (1991) Altered, painted chair with food and setting made of smog, 45" x 15" x 19" |
Politics of the Plate
Curated by Kathleen Gallegos
Avenue 50 Studio, Inc.
Highland Park, CA
March 12 - April 2, 2016
Link to Avenue 50 Studio
From the exhibition statement: "Politics of the Plate explores food through identity, social significance and the ever-continuing class struggle. We are challenging artists to produce work in any medium regarding how food can heal and be part of health, family remembrances of your mom’s cooking, or to speak more politically regarding the politics of food. Food is power. From GMO produced food to Coca-Cola’s troubles regarding the safety of bisphenolA (the plastic coating lining the inside of Coke cans), corporations world-wide are making dangerous decisions regarding our food production. Yet, we know that food can heal and be part of our health system. As a society, we need to think twice about what's on our dinner plate." |
 Detail of embroidered pillows from "Leaf Leap (All the World's Leaves)" |
On January 22, 2016, Leaf Leap leaf-pillows were given to visitors at the Skid Row Carnival of Love. Thanks to Union Rescue Mission and organizer extraordinaire, Joe Moller, for giving me the opportunity to make this distribution possible.
A little about the original installation: "Leaf Leap (All the World’s Leaves)" was first exhibited at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center in 2000 for the “Unmuseum”, and reinstalled until 2003 at the CAC’s new building by architect Zaha Hadid.
Each leaf is scaled 5 times its actual size, and each has the shape, veins, texture and color to carefully interpret the particular leaf. Straddling reason and imagination, the installation activates with a wall-scale video projection of all types of trees blowing in the wind that howls around the room. The “ocean” in shades of blue fabric, creates a soft space for kids to jump and throw over 500 soft leaves, each embroidered with the name of the tree and its location of origin.
The installation has been shown in several iterations, including "Leaf Lounge Beijing" for the Songzhuang Festival in 2007. In China, Abeles worked with local students to create their own fabric leaves, lending them momentarily as a collective, participatory space. |
Passerelles Entre Continents et Souvenirs • Bridges Between Continents and Memories
Organized by Les Seize Anges, with Le Soutien de la Maison des Artistes
Artists include: Kim Abeles, Renée Amitai, Debra Dobkin, Patrick Dunand, Rachel Hobreigh, Jean-Pierre Mosca, Cris Orfescu, and François de Verdière
Mairie du 8ème
3 rue de Lisbonne, Paris
Nov 7 -18, 2016
Mu Gallery, 53 Rue Blanche, Paris
Nov 22 - Dec 17, 2016 |
Form, Art, and the Environment: Engaging in Sustainability
I'm honored to be included in the forthcoming book by Barbara Benish and Nathalie Blanc, "Form, Art, and the Environment: Engaging in Sustainability". It will be published in September by Routledge Press. 60 images in color and B & W. Available by e-manuscript, paperback, and hardback. |
Forthcoming Book
Patricia Watts and Amy Lipton of ecoartspace will begin publishing a series of monographic art & ecology books on pioneering artists in the field. They will start this year with Kim Abeles covering thirty-five years of working from downtown Los Angeles (1980-2015). |
 Top: "Smog Collector Sculpture (Sixty Days of Smog)" (1991-92) Welded vehicle exhaust systems, bilingual text, images made of particulate matter (smog) on glass gathered at California State University, Fullerton, 62" x 34" x 34" Commissioned by the California Bureau of Automotive Repair, Department of Consumer Affairs; Bottom: "Mountain Wedge" (1986-87) Walk-thru “camera bellows” housing 274 photographs looking north on Broadway at the San Gabriel Mountains obscured by smog; oil painting of the mountain |
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 "Enchanted Forest (and Golf Course) II" (2009) Ultrachrome print of aerial view in Orange County; model trees, 10" x 17" x 18". Photo credit: Ken Marchionno |
A Portrait of Trees in Pasadena
City of Pasadena Rotating Public Art Exhibition Program
October 2013 - December 2016
Pasadena Convention Center Lobby
On view are selections from the ongoing 2007 series, Signs of Life, that use hand-painted model trees to pinpoint trees on aerial urban photographs.
Link to Pasadena's Rotating Public Arts Program |
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