Karen Kilimnik

Karen Kilimnik’s work has occupied a significant position in international contemporary art since the 1990s. Kilimnik’s practice combines art historical styles, cultural codes, and prominent figures from the romantic tradition of painting, ballet, and opera with those of contemporary glamor and pop culture. Her artistic practice draws on diverse media such as painting, drawing, collage, photography, video, and installation. A certain passionate aura characterizes her work, which stems from her extensive knowledge of selected subject areas. In Kilimnik’s work, "staging" and the "stage" itself play a significant role. As early as the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kilimnik presented mise en scène installations depicting broadcasts of stage performances in which her passion for Russian ballet was repeatedly highlighted. Kilimnik uses stage props, wafts of fog, sound and light as fragmentary means to create settings that encourage viewers to drift into imaginary narratives. The current exhibition presents two installative settings featuring Kilimnik's works Swan Lake (1992) and Kitri and friends at the garden folly (2004). Flanking these are paintings from different years that depict a “forest clearing as stage” theme but which also engage intrinsically with presence and absence. With these and other works, the exhibition highlights Kilimnik’s artistic ability to continually renegotiate the conditions of established narratives within and beyond her time.

Accompanying the exhibition is a conversation between Sabrina Tarasoff and Melanie Ohnemus.