Design Office with Kim Gordon – since 1980

White Columns is pleased to announce ‘Design Office with Kim Gordon – Since 1980’, the first survey exhibition of Kim Gordon’s ongoing art practice.

Kim Gordon studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and has continued to work as an artist since then. Her first solo exhibition, presented under the name ‘Design Office’ took place at White Columns in 1981. The current exhibition includes photographs, writings, videos, paintings, sculptures and archival materials relating to Gordon’s activities between 1980 and 2013.

In a 1980 statement about ‘Design Office’ Gordon wrote: “… the general area of interest for myself is experimental, using art to deconstruct design, … and design to deconstruct art as it exists within varying life styles …” For the past thirty years Gordon has worked consistently across disciplines and across distinct cultural fields: art, design, writing (ZG, Real Life, Artforum etc.), fashion (X-Girl), music (inc. Sonic Youth, Free Kitten, Body/Head), and film/video (both an actress and director.) About Gordon’s mercurial practice, Ben Ratliff writing in The New York Times observed:

“Being able to see and hear Ms. Gordon more clearly now, in primary roles, helps suggests a pattern. Her path has seemed continually accidental or indirect, one side-door entrance after another. As an adjunct of making art, she became a writer. As an adjunct of being a writer, she joined a band. Her work in a band, and the discipline of developing a public visual persona, may have led her toward fashion. And so on.”

On view at White Columns are key video works, including ‘Making The Nature Scene’ (1983) shot in New York’s Danceteria nightclub, and the ‘X-Girl Movie’ (1995) – a promotional film for Gordon’s and Daisy Von Furth’s clothing line, shot by Phil Morrison in the manner of the French New Wave cinema. Also on view are documentary videos of Gordon and Jutta Koether’s collaborative performances and installations, including images from the now legendary month-long series of events they organized as ‘The Club In The Shadow’ at Kenny Schachter’s downtown space in 2003.

Gordon’s paintings include the ongoing ‘Noise Painting’ series, depicting the names of experimental and noise groups (e.g. ‘Weak Sisters’, ‘Pussy Galore’ and – on the floor, crumpled into a ball – ‘Sonic Youth’); a series of paintings depicting the names of contemporary galleries and gallery owners (including ‘Larry Gagosian’, ‘Barbara Gladstone’, and ‘White Columns’); works from the untitled ‘From The Boyfriend’ series – Rorschach-like images painted on used denim skirts, and the most recent series of ‘Twitter Paintings’ sourced from the Twitter streams of ‘GIRLS’ producer Jenni Konner, critic Jerry Saltz, and artist Richard Prince among others.

A new limited-edition vinyl solo recording ‘Walks With Men’ by Kim Gordon will accompany the exhibition, released on ‘The Sound of White Columns’ label. A publication anthologizing Gordon’s activities as an artist will follow in the fall.

Two newly commissioned Design Office t-shirts will also be available from the gallery.

Kim Gordon’s art has been shown internationally including recent solo exhibitions at KS Art, New York and Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, among others. Her collected writings – which originally appeared in Artforum, ZG and Real Life magazines – are forthcoming from the Sternberg Press. A widely recorded musician Kim Gordon is a founding member of Sonic Youth and performs as Body/Head (with Bill Nace.) In September 2013 Body/Head will release their debut album on Matador, and play select dates in both the United States and Europe.

In November 2013, ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn concludes its ten-year anniversary festival with a capstone, two-night benefit concert series honoring Kim Gordon. Over two evenings, Gordon will be joined in performances by collaborators Ikue Mori, Bill Nace, Jutta Koether, with more to be announced. For more information on this event, visit: www.issueprojectroom.org

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For further information about White Columns’ exhibitions please contact: info@whitecolumns.org