Installation by Krysten Cunningham acquired by Los Angeles County Museum of Art
LADIES’ ROOM is pleased to announce Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s acquisition of Twisted Octagon, Yellow Rectangle (2016), an installation that was first shown at the gallery in 2019 by Krysten Cunningham. Inspired by the geometric abstraction of early European modernism, the mid-century Neo-Concrete artists of South America, and the Light and Space movement of ‘60s Southern California, Cunningham’s works inhabit a liminal space between multiple dimensions, disciplines and eras. She uses the textile loom not as a weaving apparatus but as a point of departure, a trope employed to go back in history while bridging to the future. For Cunningham, the loom represents a female-oriented archetype from which much of modern science and technology originates.
Zanna Gilbert, art historian and senior research specialist for Getty Research Institute, writes about Cunningham: “In her sculptural and participatory works, she is able to harness an impressive materiality, however, the works are open to interpretation and ask for connectivity with and between participants.” And curator Elise Barclay describes her work: “Visually, through her use of color and geometry, and physically through her engagement with fiber-based materials, Cunningham creates a relatable tableaux that paradoxically becomes less optically certain as the work is experienced. The geometric drawn forms are intended to be both meditative and mesmerizing, as they evoke a simultaneous sense of movement, stillness, and gravitation.”
Krysten Cunningham, in a sense, is weaving together logic and intuition, inviting the viewer to transcend the gap between physical and theoretical via her explorations of chosen media.
Krysten Cunningham has a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from UCLA and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Getty Center, Los Angeles CA, the Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont CA; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA; the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder CO; and the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds UK. Cunningham’s recent exhibitions include Balls to the Wall at LADIES’ ROOM, 3D Double Vision at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Lawn Drawings at the Getty Center, an installation and performance as part of the exhibition Making Art Concrete: Works from Argentina and Brazil in the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Upcoming projects include a public commission at the LAX airport in conjunction with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
Check out Krysten Cunningham: Balls to the Wall here.