‘Gainer’ (2006) is part of the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago.
About:
Kori Newkirk is based in Los Angeles.
Newkirk explores issues of the body, alienation and location. Made in 2013, these works are poetic meditations on the artist’s progress through a landscape of vibrant commerce and listless dispossession. They discover and interpret beauty in contested environments, seeking bliss in transition and transformation.
Jet (Prototype 1) (2013) is the largest of the five works in the show. The floor sculpture consists of hundreds of transparent spheres that range in size from a marble to a golf ball. The spheres consist of a space age material that has partially absorbed the artist’s bodily fluids (tears, sweat, and saliva), making Jet (Prototype 1) a conceptual self-portrait.
Natter (2013) is comprised of a long arc of tin cans mounted on the wall. Some of the cans are lined with multi-colored glitter while others reveal their existing metallic interiors. The shape alludes to a rainbow or skid, suggesting an ever-turning wheel, a broken circle, the glint in an eye and a speech bubble.
Rhythm and Warmth (2013) is an embellished photographic diptych portraying two upside-down television antennas against a cloudy sky. The dislocating image evokes myriad associations including antiquated technological twins, subverted communications, airy ornaments, and a world turned upside down by change.
Beaded Hair Extensions.
The exhibition also includes two works that evoke hands: a predominately black and white photograph of a paper towel with a sooty imprint of the artist’s right hand and a hanging sculpture that incorporates gloves, pigeon feathers, shoelaces and pennies.
Newkirk has long explored landscapes. This time, human presences – particularly his own – are more significant. Always interested in the skin of things, Newkirk now delves deeper into the DNA of his forms.
Rank, 2008 (detail).
Kori Newkirk (born 1970) received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1993 and his MFA from the University of California, Irvine in 1997. He has had solo exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, LAXART and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Notable group exhibitions include the 2006 Whitney Biennial, DAK’ART (the Dakar Biennial, Senegal, 2006), and the traveling exhibition, “Uncertain States of America” (2005-6). Newkirk’s work is in the collections of the Hammer Museum, MCA Chicago, MOCA Los Angeles, the Art Institute of Chicago, Henry Art Gallery (Seattle) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Legacy, 1999.
Kori Newkirk is an artist working in many mediums, but it always drawn back to the photograph as a means for creation and as a means to communicate truths. Based in Los Angeles, Newkirk often explores issues of the body, alienation and location in his work. He is fascinated with human history and culturally-placed significance on objects and images. His conceptual practice questions both cultural and aesthetic notions of beauty and identity. Newkirk poignantly meshes message-centric photographs, racially stereotyped objects and light to create a new paradigm and creative dialogue for viewers to consider.
