Drawing correspondences between romantic tradition and consumer culture, Karen Kilimnik's work brings a haunting and contrary sense of beauty to contemporary art. The world of the ballet and childhood, romantic painting and pop music, icons of film and fashion, signs of witchcraft, time-travel, and murder comprise an imagery that has been culled from the fairytale and recent past into an unsettling present. In a world where the forces of nature, youth, and terror have taken awesome hold, Kilimnik's art rematerializes a quest for the romantic sublime.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2018 Carnegie International, 57th edition, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
2017 “Zeitgeist”, MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland
2016 Château de Malmaison, Rueil-Malmaison, Rueil-Malmaison, France, presented by Le Consortium, Dijon
2014 “Psyche” at Opera National de Paris / Opera Garnier, Paris, France
2013 Academie Conti, Le Consortium, Dijon, France
2012 The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT
2010 “Intervention”, Osterreichischle Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria
2007 "Karen Kilimnik", Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; MOCA Miami; Serpentine Gallery, London
2006 Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
2005 Historisches Museum Basel, Haus Zum Kirschgarten, Basel
2000 Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany South London Gallery, London, UK
Kunstverein Wolfsburg e. V. Wolfsburg, Germany
COLLECTIONS
American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
Centre genevois de gravure contemporaine, Geneve, Switzerland
Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy
Graphische Sammlung das ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, MA
Museum of Conetmoporary Art, Chicago, IL
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Windsor Collection, Bielefeld, Germany
Fondazione Di Vignola. Italy
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Guggenheim, New York, NY
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY