Until january 7, 2007
American Karen Kilimnik is practically unknown in France. However
Jennifer Flay, the current director of Fiac, exposed her first work
since 1992, followed in 1998 by the Ghislaine-Hussenot gallery. This
artist acquired an international notoriety by many exhibitions in the
museums and the galleries of the whole world, Zurich, New York or
Dublin. Its installation last year in Palazzo Tito for the Bienniale of
Venice made great noise. Living in Philadelphia, far from the usual
circuits of the contemporary art, Karen Kilimnik built a work in which
it carts contemporary mythologies as well as poetry, the magic, and a
true passion for the fairy tale. It borrows its subjects as well from
old painting than with the art of today, as it is of literature, music,
ballet or decoration. There is irony in its matter, a certain
insolence, respectful of the beauty of the dreams. With it, a
high-speed motorboat of Hollywood is transformed into Cinderella and
the castle of Manderley in thatched cottage, which accommodates Peter
Pan.
Paris Hilton as a Marie-Antoinette, Leonardo DiCaprio as a prince
Desiré and Noureev in Snow Prince. The astonishment is serious.
In which world are we? That of Karen Kilimnik who seizes reality to
carry it towards a dream through a series of three installations. Its
Antechambers, which would like a madness XVIIIth century, is in fact
the copy of a decoration of the series TV “Dynasty”, with on the wall
of the forgeries Goya, false Gainsborough, false Reynolds. A
commonplace which even enchants beyond the anecdote, and transports us
in a world where childhood builds the dream. Even impression with The
Grotto, installation of a basin surrounded by ivy and sculptures.
Idyllic decoration for a traditional ballet. Dancers and dancers are
not any more that phantoms, of which the portraits are locked up within
frameworks, Rudolf Noureev is the great guardian figure. As for one of
these landscapes which one can see hung here and there, it could be
well that it is one of these cottages where Rolling Stones were made
stop for detention of drug. There is no perversity at Karen Kilimnik,
quite to the contrary, but a manner of demystifying the fairy tale all
while restoring its magic capacity to him, that to transport us in
another world.
J e a n - L o u i s P i n t
