Kelly Akashi: Encounters

Lower Level Galleries

September 30, 2023 - June 16, 2024

Material tactility, its possibilities, limitations, and transformation form the core of Kelly Akashi's practice. Originally trained in photography, Akashi brings the medium's concern with questions of time and truth to her sculptural work across a diverse array of media, including wax, bronze, glass, rope, and video.

For this commissioned exhibition, the artist continues her explorations in the mapping of time to locate humankind amongst other consciousnesses along Earth's geological timeline. A large-scale video filling the back wall of the double-height gallery is comprised of vignettes of different kinds of simulated astronomical bodies, in particular the projected galaxy collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda (the closest galaxy to us) in 4.5 billion years. On the floor of the space, a series of "folded earth" sculptures, undulating layers of fired clay, engage earth via multiple referents: tectonic shifts, hills and valleys, the organic swell of the ground beneath our feet. Life-sized, bronze sculptures of hands, always the artist's own, sit atop the "folded earth" sculptures, often holding delicate porcelain and glass forms that draw attention to the fluidity and interconnectedness of her chosen media. Surrounding the sculptural installation are a selection of crystallographs, a camera-less photographic process wherein the artist grows crystals on film and prints enlargements of these forms.

Deftly combining and contrasting scale, time, and material, Akashi's Encounters form a crucible for the vast possibilities inherent in connection and collision. These outcomes may be simultaneously painful and nurturing, destructive and constructive, ephemeral and eternal, fragile and indestructible. Encounters invites the viewer to consider the precariousness of their own material body and life, seeing concurrently both the insignificance and preciousness of one's existence in the scope of the universe.

Artist Bio

Born in 1983 in Los Angeles, CA, lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Kelly Akashi completed her education at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Städelschule, Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; and Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles. Akashi has exhibited widely in North America and internationally. She has presented solo exhibitions at the San Jose Museum of Art, California; Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; and SculptureCenter, New York, among others. Additionally, she has participated in group exhibitions at Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; Musee Angers, France; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, France; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; and Jewish Museum, New York, among other institutions. She is a recent recipient of the LACMA Art + Technology Grant, and the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Art Prize and Residency. She has been an artist in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin Headlands, California, and ARCH Athens, Greece. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Frye Art Museum, Seattle; Walker Art Center, Minneaoplis; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Museum, New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; X Museum, Beijing; and Sifang Museum, Nanjing, among others.

Publication

CREDITS

Kelly Akashi: Encounters is organized by Shamim M. Momin, Director of Curatorial Affairs. Generous support is provided by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.