E X I L E Elisabethstr 24 1010 Wien
[email protected] +43.681.81462848 KINKE KOOI <> TENANT OF CULTURE Fittings Mar 12 - May 30, 2020 Kinke Kooi & Tenant of Culture: Hold me. 2013/2020. Color pencil, pencil and acrylic on paper behind fabric, 46 x 68 cm The exhibition Fittings combines the works of the Dutch artists Kinke Kooi, born 1961, and Hendrickje Schimmel, born 1990, who operates under the synonyme ‘Tenant of Culture’. Fittings is part of an ongoing series of exhibitions combining artists of different generations and backgrounds. Kinke Kooi abstracts internal, organ-like physicalities into elaborate dream-like, pastel-colored drawings. Fleshy organs together with pearls, plants, fruits and cotton buds are contrasted with sharp knives, rulers and square shapes. The inherent symbolism can be interpreted through gender definition as entangled in an organic, fleshy web of almost paradisian but subversive non-binary utopia. The works reference historical anatomic drawing as well as religious iconography but result in an intestinal physiological and psychological landscape of an organ‘s inner bowel movement. Kinke Kooi‘s work abstracts and subverts the internalised sphere of body and gender identity. Her work exposes a magic, yet vulnerable inside based equally on symbiosis and conflict. Tenant of Culture applies millennial post-gender trajectories based on community and inclusion into three-dimensional hybrid artefacts. The artist upcycles used materials, mainly old clothing, into new sculptural works that disrupt the definition of garment as well as of sculpture. The works become hybrids, that function in the ephemeral in-between of fashionable fluctuation and sculptural monumentality.