Deborah Kass
Deborah Kass (born 1952
Early life
Deborah Kass was born in 1952 in
At age 14, Kass began taking drawing classes at The Art Students League in New York City which she funded with money she made babysitting. In the afternoons, she would go to theater on and off Broadway, often sneaking for the second act. During her high school years, she would take her time in the city to visit the Museum of Modern Art, where she would be exposed to the works of post-war artists like Frank Stella and Willem De Kooning.[4] At age 17, Stella’s retrospective exhibition inspired Kass to become an artist as she observed and understood the logic in his progression of works and the motivation behind his creative decisions.[4]
Education
Kass received her BFA in Painting at Carnegie Mellon University (the alma mater of artist Andy Warhol), and studied at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program[5] Here, she created her first work of appropriation, Ophelia’s Death After Delacroix, a six by eight foot rendition of a small sketch by the French Romantic artist, Eugène Delacroix.[4]
Influences
At the same time Neo-Expressionism was being helmed by white men in the late Reagan years, women were just beginning to create a stake in the game for critical works. “The Photo Girls” consisted of artists like Sherrie Levine, Cindy Sherman, and Barbara Kruger. Kass felt that content of these works connected those of the post-war abstract painters of the mid-70s including Elizabeth Murray, Pat Steir, and Susan Rothenberg. All of these artists critically explored art in terms of new subjectivities from their points-of-view as women.[4] Kass took from these artists the ideas of cultural and media critique, inspiring her Art History Paintings.
Kass is most famous for her “Decade of Warhol,” in which she appropriated various works by the pop artist,
Works
Kass's work is in the collections of the
In 2012 Kass's work was the subject of a mid-career retrospective Deborah Kass, Before and Happily Ever After at
Kass's work has been shown at international private and public venues including at the
Kass's later paintings often borrow their titles from song lyrics. Her series feel good paintings for feel bad times,[3] incorporates lyrics borrowed from The Great American Songbook, which address history, power, and gender relations that resonate with Kass's themes in her own work.[9]
Art History Paintings 1989–1992
In Kass's first significant body of work, the Art History Paintings, she combined frames lifted from Disney cartoons with slices of painting from Pablo Picasso, Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock, and other contemporary sources. Establishing appropriation as her primary mode of working, these early paintings also introduced many of the central concerns of her work to the present. Before and Happily Ever After, for example, coupled Andy Warhol’s painting of an advertisement for a nose job with a movie still of Cinderella fitting her foot into her glass slipper, touching on notions of Americanism and identity in popular culture. The Art History Paintings series engages critically with the history of politics and art making, especially exploring the power relationship of men and women in society. Deborah Kass's work reveals a personal relationship she shares with particular artworks, songs and personalities, many of which are referenced directly in her paintings.[10]
The Warhol Project 1992–2000
In 1992, Kass began The Warhol Project.
America’s Most Wanted
America's Most Wanted is a series of enlarged black-and-white screen prints of fake police mug shots. The collection of prints from 1998–1999 is a late-1990s update of Andy Warhol’s 1964 work
Feel Good Paintings for Feel Bad Times 2002–ongoing
In 2002, Kass began a new body of work, feel good paintings for feel bad times, inspired, in part, by her reaction to the Bush administration. These works combine stylistic devices from a wide variety of post-war painting, including
OY/YO
In 2015, Two Tree Management Art in Dumbo commissioned of a monumentally scaled installation of OY/YO for the Brooklyn Bridge Park. The sculpture, measuring 8×17×5 ft., consists of big yellow aluminum letters, was installed on the waterfront and was visible from the Manhattan. It spells “YO” against the backdrop of Brooklyn. The flip side, for those gazing at Manhattan, reads “OY.”[14] An article and photo appeared on the front page of the New York Times 3 days after its installation in the park. An instant icon, OY/YO stayed at that site for 10 months where it became a tourist destination, a favorite spot for wedding, graduation, class photos and countless selfies. After its stay in Dumbo it moved to the ferry stop at North 6th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for a year, where it greeted ferry riders. Since 2011, OY/YO has been a reoccurring motif in Deborah Kass's work in the form of paintings, prints, and tabletop sculptures. Kass first created “OY” as a painting riffing on Edward Ruscha’s 1962 Pop canvas, “OOF.” She later painted “YO” as a diptych that nodded to Picasso's 1901 self-portrait, “Yo Picasso” (“I, Picasso”).[15] OY/YO is now installed in front of the Brooklyn Museum. Another arrived at Stanford University in front of the Cantor Arts Center late 2019.[16]
A large edition of OY/YO was acquired by the Jewish Museum in New York in 2017 and is on view in the exhibition Scenes from the Collection.[17]
No Kidding
On December 9, 2015 Deborah Kass introduced her new paintings that incorporated neon lights in an exhibition at Paul Kasmin Gallery entitled "No Kidding" in Chelsea, New York. The exhibition was an extension of her Feel Good Paintings for Feel Bad Times, but it sets a darker, tougher tone as she reflects on contemporary issues such as global warming, institutional racism, political brutality, gun violence, and attacks on women's health, through the lens of minimalism and grief. The series is ongoing.[18]
Louises
Deborah Kass has spoken about creating an “ode to the great Louises,” a space dedicated to her works inspired by famous Louise’s which she would call the “Louise Suite.”[19] The earliest of these odes is “Sing Out Louise,” a 2002 oil on linen painting from her Feel Good Paintings Feel Bad Times collection.[20] “Sing out Louise” is driven by her fondness for Rosalind Russel and the fact Kass feels it is her time to “Sing Out”.[21] “After Louise Bourgeois” is a 2010 sculpture made of neon and transformers on powder-coated aluminum monolith; it is a spiraling neon light with a phrase inspired by French-American artist Louise Bourgeois.[22] The neon installation reads “A woman has no place in the art world unless she proves over and over again that she won’t be eliminated.” Kass changed the quote slightly to better represent her beliefs but it was derived from Bourgeois.[23][24] “After Louise Nevelson” is a 2020 spiraling neon work of art that reads "Anger? I'd be dead without my anger" a quote from American sculptor, Louise Nevelson.[25]
Personal life
Deborah Kass married artist Patricia Anne Cronin in July 2011. Cronin is a professor of art at Brooklyn College. She graduated from Rhode Island College, got and MFA in painting from Brooklyn College, and studied at both the Yale Summer School of Art and Music and the Skowhegan School of Art.[26]
Award and Grants
- New York Foundation for the Arts, inducted into NYFA Hall of Fame (2014)[27]
- Art Matters Inc. Grant (1996)
- Art Matters Inc. Grant (1992)
- New York Foundation for the Arts, Fellowship in Painting 1987 National Endowment for the Arts, Painting (1991)
- National Endowment For The Arts (1987)
Selected books
2012: Shiner, Eric C., with Lisa Liebman, Brooks Adams, Griselda Pollock, Irving Sandler, Robert Storr and John Waters, 'Deborah Kass: Before and Happily Ever After,' Rizzoli, New York.[28]
2010: Katz, Jonathan D. and David C. Ward, eds., HIDE/ SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, exhibition catalog, Smithsonian Books, Washington DC
2006: Wagner, Frank, Kasper Konig, Julia Freidrich, eds., The Eighth Square, Gender, Life, and Desire in the Arts since 1960, exhibition catalog, Museum Ludwig, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Germany
2006: Bloom, Lisa, Jewish Identities in American Feminist Art, Routledge, New York, NY [29]
2004: Higgs, Matthew, Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists, exhibition catalogue, CAA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art and
1999: Plante, Michael, ed. (with essays by Maurice Berger, Linda Nochlin, Robert Rosenblum, and Mary Anne Staniszewski), Deborah Kass: The Warhol Project, exhibition catalog, Newcombe Art Gallery, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
1998: Bright, Deborah, ed., The Passionate Camera, Photography and Bodies of Desire, Routledge, New York, NY
1997: Schor, Mira, Wet, On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture, Duke University Press, Durham, NC
1996: Kleeblatt, Norman L and Linda Nochlin, Too Jewish?: Challenging Traditional Identities, exhibition catalog, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ
1996: James, Jamie, Pop Art Colour Library, Phaidon Press Ltd., London, England [30]
1995: Blake, Nayland, Lawrence Rinder, Amy Scholder, eds., In A Different Light; Visual Culture, Sexual Identity, Queer Practice, exhibition catalogue, City Lights Books, San Francisco, CA
1993: Chernow, Barbara A. and George A. Vallasi, eds., "American Art," The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, Columbia University Press, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA
References
- ^ a b c d "Deborah Kass | Blue Deb | The Met". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum. Retrieved 2018-03-30.
- ^ "Deborah Kass - 165 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy".
- ^ a b c Kass, Deborah, and Lisa Liebmann. Deborah Kass: Before and Happily Ever after. New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Deborah Kass". designmattersmedia. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-07-10. Retrieved 2015-07-08.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ The New York Times, Riffing On Forefathers And Mothers, 10/28/2012 The New York Times, retrieved April 25, 2014
- ^ Has Deborah Kass Saved Warhol Appropriation?, Hyperallergic January 4, 2013, Retrieved April 25, 2014
- ^ "Deborah Kass".
- ^ Museum, The Andy Warhol. "Deborah Kass: Before and Happily Ever After". The Andy Warhol Museum. Retrieved 2016-09-11.
- ^ "The warhol: Deborah Kass: Before and Happily Ever After". Archived from the original on 2015-12-29. Retrieved 2015-11-17.
- ^ "The Tulane WordPress Network – Supported WordPress Sites for Tulane".
- ISBN 978-0847839186.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
- ^ "Press Releases Archives".
- ^ deborahkass.com
- ^ Whiting, Sam (January 14, 2020). "'YO': Stanford has a new, bright-yellow social media magnet". San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guide. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
- ^ "The Jewish Museum". thejewishmuseum.org. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
- ^ "Artists".
- ^ "Deborah Kass with Terry R. Myers". The Brooklyn Rail. 2010-09-03. Retrieved 2023-05-24.
- ^ "Deborah Kass, Sing out Louise, 2002". Kavi Gupta Gallery. Retrieved 2023-05-24.
- S2CID 57560504.
- ^ "Deborah Kass, AFTER LOUISE BOURGEOIS, 2010". Kavi Gupta Gallery. Retrieved 2023-05-24.
- ^ "Deborah Kass - NOMEN: American Women Artists from 1945 to Today New York Monday, June 17, 2019". Phillips. Retrieved 2023-05-24.
- ^ "Deborah Kass, Sing out Louise, 2002". Kavi Gupta Gallery. Retrieved 2023-05-24.
- ^ "Deborah Kass, After Louise Nevelson, 2020". Kavi Gupta Gallery. Retrieved 2023-05-24.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ^ "New York Foundation for the Arts". www.nyfa.org. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
- ^ "DEBORAH KASS: BEFORE AND HAPPILY EVER AFTER | Rizzoli Bookstore". www.rizzolibookstore.com. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
- ^ "Jewish Identities in American Feminist Art: Ghosts of Ethnicity, 1st Edition (Paperback) - Routledge". Routledge.com. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
- ^ "Pop Art | Art | Phaidon Store". Phaidon. Retrieved 2020-03-08.