Kim Schoen

Kim Schoen’s work in photography, video and film explores the concept of repetition as the site or force that disrupts and reveals. The multifaceted exploration of this theme ranges from historical re-enactment and its potential to cause the return of the ghost of the past in Panjandrum (2005), to testing of the limits of photographic repetition in Niagara Falls All Over Again (a series of one) (2006) and in video work.

In the strangely hypnotic Rotten Row (2006) the horse and the rider appear to be trapped in the impossibility not to repeat the same gestures, locked in this predicament by the looped video sequence.

Similarly, in Professional Wailing Woman (Take 1) Schoen holds drenched sponges to her eyes and repeatedly squeezes them to expel the water until they are dry, water that runs down her face to tragi-comic effect.

The dialectic between fragility and aggression, while intermittently present in many of Schoen’s works, surfaces with particular force in the most recent of her photographic works, Siege Plates (2007). Apparently unassailable in their sleek perfection and bulk, these glass-mounted photographs of breastplates are in fact highly vulnerable. Their sale contract obligates the buyer to transport the work without wrapping it for protection and, in the event that damage occurs, exhibiting it in its damaged state.

Born in Princeton, New Jersey. Kim Schoen lives in Los Angeles and London.

Education
2005-2007: MPhil, Photography, Royal College of Art, London
2003-2005: MFA, Photography, CalArts, Valencia, CA

Solo Exhibitions
2007: ‘Backing Down’, Cité Internationale des Arts
2006: ‘A Series of Catastrophes and Celebrations’, Bank Gallery, Los Angeles
2005: ‘The Story of Panjandrum’, Beta-Level, Chinatown, Los Angeles — ‘Panjandrum’, CalArts, Valencia, CA
2001: ‘Compartments’, The National Arts Club, New York

Selected Group Exhibitions
2007: ‘Body/Talk/City’, Dublin Docklands, Dublin — ‘Parnu International Video Festival’, Parnu, Estonia — ‘The Region of Unlikeness’, Bank, Los Angeles, (artist-curated video exhibition) — ‘The Great Exhibition: The Royal College of Show’, The Royal College of Art, London — ‘Beyond Image: Photography in Contemporary Art: The Armory’, Pasadena, California — ‘After Afterlife’, The Hockney Gallery, London, (artist-curated exhibition) urated — ‘Year_07 Art Projects’, London — ‘Aqua Wynwood art fair’, Miami, USA
2006: ‘Wight Biennial: The Anxiety of Influence’, New Wight Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles — ‘The Rose Bowl Biennial, Outpost for Contemporary Art’, Pasadena — ‘Royal Alumni’, Enjoy Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand — ‘In Rest of the Room’, VideoProgramm II, Kunstverein Langenhagen, Germany — ‘Videos im Ballhaus Ost’, Berlin — ‘Flourish’, L.A.C.E. (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) — Invitational’, Roski Gallery, USC, Los Angeles
2005: ‘Afterlife’, Gallery Kuntur, Amsterdam (artist-curated exhibition) urated
‘No Heroics Please’, Redcat, Los Angeles — ‘Supersonic II’, Los Angeles Design Center, Los Angeles — ‘Projecta 05’, PhotoEspana En la Calle, Madrid — ‘Shipping + Receiving’, Armory Northwest, Pasadena
2004: ‘Documentia’, curated by Allan Sekula, California Institute of the Arts

Prizes/Awards
RCA Society Thames & Hudson Art Book, 2007

Bibliography
Gray, Emma. “L.A. Confi dential.” ArtNet Magazine, February, 2007
Duncan, Michael. “Opening Salvos in L.A.” Art in America, November 2006
Meyer, Holly, Art in Review, Los Angeles Times, November 2006
Lewis, Katharine L. “Living History” Bank Exhibition Catalog, Sept 2006
Newhouse, Kristina. “Ruptures” Bank Exhibition Catalog, Sept 2006