The Parrish Art Museum presents two solo shows this summer featuring internationally renowned artist KAWS and debuting Julia Chiang’s first museum exhibition. Both artists created presentations that include new work aligned with the Museum’s architecture in mind.
“We are incredibly excited to feature the two extremely dynamic artists, KAWS and Julia Chiang,” said Museum Executive Director Dr. Mónica Ramírez-Montagut. “An important part of the Museum’s work is to expand the field of art, and, to that end, we are delighted that KAWS will present never before seen paintings, together with an unprecedented showing of eleven human-scale sculptures for visitors to enjoy in the Museum’s expansive galleries. We are particularly looking forward to Julia Chiang’s first solo museum show, an exhibition that will behold and surprise the visitor both for its lushness and delicacy. Both shows will be a delight for the eye. We anticipate an incredibly vibrant summer season this year.”
“KAWS: Time Off” will feature a wide array of sculptures and paintings and is curated by Executive Director Dr. Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, with additional support from Brianna L. Hernández, Assistant Curator. KAWS is a Brooklyn-based contemporary artist who has achieved widespread recognition for his graphic style and iconic characters. Working in a wide range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, and product design, KAWS’ practice transgresses borders between “high” and “low” culture, questions the conventional hierarchies of the art world establishment, and seeks to democratize the way art is experienced for a new generation.
“Julia Chiang: The Glows and The Blows” is the first-ever solo museum exhibition by the painter. The artist will present new paintings and ceramics. Chiang’s painterly process is slow and controlled while spontaneous. Organic shapes coalesce on the picture plane in varying densities of paint and, with fervor, scrimmage for territory. Although she operates in abstractions, the body is the basis for her allegories, metaphors, and explorations. Her vocabulary is rife with organic forms and formations, which function as introspections that range from the corporeal to the psychological. The organic-looking imagery borrows from the physical—medical scans, internal body liquids, and environments—and the psychological—fields of layered feelings and emotions, tensions between internal turmoil and external pressures, fragility, and strength. Chiang states, “I’m always interested in our bodies as vessels, what we contain and cannot. All that comes out of us, all that is within us . . . Borders both real and imagined. Existing in the in-between.”
The exhibit is organized by Corinne Erni, Lewis B., and Dorothy Cullman, Chief Curator, Art and Education, with additional support from Brianna L. Hernández, Assistant Curator.
The shows will run from July 14 to October 13.