Thursday 22 October 2015

Kiki Kogelnik - Fly Me to the Moon

  
 
Fly Me to the Moon, by Kiki Kogelnik at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
 
 
 
 
 
Despite Kogelnik's early popularity and continued appreciation in her native Austria, her work was overlooked by international art institutions until recent years. Fly Me to the Moon is the first major solo exhibition in the UK offering the opportunity to experience the prophetic work of this artist.
 
Working in New York in the 1960s Kogelnik depicted the anxieties of the Cold War era, when the Space Race was at its height and fears of nuclear annihilation were growing.
 
Fly Me to the Moon includes works produced by Kogelnik during this time, such as a series of vivid paintings of lunar landscapes, in which human forms fly across a canvas criss-crossed by spots. Over time, she grew disenchanted with the volatile new inventions of her age. These anxieties are reflected in the works on paper, which are populated by rockets, robots and decapitated bodies, in addition to her sculptural 'hangings' - human-like forms cut in vinyl and hung on clothes rails.
 
 
 
 
Her work is very relevant today reflecting the way in which we live, work and communicate which are constantly changing with the development of new technologies. Since the rise of smartphones and social media, we spend more time connected to digital networks than ever before. In this time of particular and rapid change, it can be easy to forget that other generations also had to adapt to a world altered by new frontiers in technological and scientific progress.
 
 

 

Untitled (M), 1964 (oil and acrylic on canvas)
 
 


Untitled (A), 1963 (oil and acrylic on canvas)




Fly Me to the Moon, 1963, (oil and acrylic on canvas)




Machine, 1963 (oil and acrylic on canvas)
 
 


Bleiburg Skull, 1972, (sheet vinyl with mixed media)
 
 






George, 1966, (fibreglass, chromed steel and mixed media)
 
 


Vibrations on a Composite Circuit, 1965 (oil and acrylic on canvas with mixed media)
 
 


Ikarus, 1965 (oil and acrylic on canvas)




Untitled (Skull), 1963, (oil on board)
 
 
 

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