Kiki Kogelnik: Riot of Objects / Athena Papadopoulos: Cain and Abel Can’t and Able

MOSTYN, Wales UK presents a new season, commencing March 2020, which includes exhibitions by Kiki Kogelnik and Athena Papadopoulos.

Riot of Objects is the first institutional presentation in the UK to focus solely on Kiki Kogelnik’s ceramic works. Considered one of the key figures of the post-war avant-garde, Kogelnik’s multidisciplinary oeuvre spans five decades. Her multifaceted artistic style evolved from painterly abstraction to Pop Art and the representation of the (female) body.

Consumer culture, technology and feminism were recurring themes throughout her work. Her unique aesthetic is marked with playfulness and humour yet imbued with a stark sense of criticality. In resisting and contesting the lure of post-war capitalist culture in her work, she demarcated herself from her contemporary peers.

Her first ceramics were made in 1974, and soon became a key activity in her artistic practice. Her ceramic works were hand-built and cut from slabs using stencils and are reminiscent of her earlier paintings in their boldness, bright colours and vivacity. Drawing on a method of presentation she employed in an exhibition at the Henri Gallery in Washington, DC in 1990, a number of islands pepper the space; made from clusters of plinths of different heights and widths and displaying a range of her freestanding works that date from the 1950s through to the 1990s. Arranged chronologically, this exhibition demonstrates Kogelnik’s boundless capacity for invention and restless commitment to making.

Kiki Kogelnik was born in 1935 in Bleiburg, Austria. She lived and worked in New York and Vienna. She died in 1997 in Vienna, Austria.

The exhibition is curated by Chris Sharp and organised by Alfredo Cramerotti, in partnership with the Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. Supported by the Austrian Federal Chancellery.

Cain and Abel Can’t and Able presents a new body of work by artist Athena Papadopoulos. Working across sculpture, painting, text and sound, Papadopoulos’ practice defies traditional representations of the body, creating excessive, decaying and abject hybrid forms hovering between the worlds of the imagined and the real. Through a process of assemblage, her work is formed of found objects amassed and collaged together. Traditional binary perceptions of gender and sexuality are uprooted and unfixed.

Using her ever-expanding vocabulary of materials and ancient narratives, which she combines with unlikely elements, this new series of works includes sound, sculpture and painting. Exploring human dichotomies, the exhibition questions the complicated duality of reason and emotion.

The exhibition is inspired by her recently published book Cain and Abel Can’t and Able, which gives the exhibition its title. Drawing from the biblical story of Cain and Abel, Papadopoulos reflects on her own personal experiences of sibling rivalry and competition within romantic relationships but also, crucially, the struggle between good and evil.

Cain and Abel Can’t and Able is centred around a dialogue written by Papadopoulos in which an imagined narrative between two seemingly distinct voices is played out. Exploring themes such as jealousy, lust and kindness, Papadopoulos transforms this dialogue into wall-based sculptural paintings, an experimental sound work which can be heard throughout the gallery space and pages of the text that reappear hidden, splayed and nesting within the installation.

Athena Papadopoulos was born in 1988 in Toronto, CA. She lives and works in London.

The exhibition is curated by Alfredo Cramerotti, Director, MOSTYN and supported by the Zabludowicz Collection.

About MOSTYN, Wales UK
Situated in the coastal town of Llandudno, MOSTYN is Wales’ foremost visual arts centre, serving as a platform for contemporary artistic practice and audience engagement. MOSTYN presents outstanding and critically engaged international contemporary art that engages, inspires and encourages people to form and share new perspectives on the world through its programmes. It is part of Plus TATE, the UK-wide contemporary visual art network.

For further information and press images, please contact Lin Cummins, Audience Relations Manager, MOSTYN
lin@mostyn.org / T 01492 879201