FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT
Lorraine Molina, Director
213.621.4055
BANK
125 W. 4th St. Los Angeles, CA 90013
Gallery Hours: TUES. – SAT. 11am-5pm
lorraine@bank-art.com
http://www.bank-art.com
KIM SCHOEN
A Series of Catastrophes and Celebrations
September 14 - October 21, 2006
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 14, 6 – 9PM
The relationship between individual experience, memory and collectivized history has been the center of Kim Schoen's photography and video work. Schoen uses the past as a site of intervention, creating situations or events that sit in between a documentary and conceptual practice.
In A Series of Catastrophes and Celebrations, Schoen exhibits a series of photographs that document a fireworks event at a dry lakebed in the Mojave Desert. The event, assembled by the artist, gathered a group of people to act as both witness and participant by collectively photographing fireworks under a high noon sky. Although individuals photographed the event from their various points of view they remain anonymous, leaving Schoen as editor to reconstruct the event thus rewriting its history.
The results are striking photographs of explosives suspended in various states of its lifespan. With a bright blue sky as a backdrop, the fireworks appear out of context caught between something festive or cataclysmic. Because there was no significant historical event or location to commemorate, the fireworks were stripped of a larger, prescribed, social or political meaning, and the significance shifted to a more personal experience - shared, yet private.
Kim Schoen holds her MFA from CalArts in Los Angeles and is currently pursuing a Masters in Philosophy in the photography department at The Royal College of Art in London. Her work has been shown in Germany at the Kunstverein Langenhagen, at REDCAT, Beta-Level in Chinatown, The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena and in Amsterdam at Gallery Kuntur. A 24-page catalog will accompany the exhibition with essays by Katherine Lewis and Kristina Newhouse.