Galerie Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber is currently hosting Karen Kilimnik’s first solo show (until 11 May) in Europe since her smash hit solo tour in 2000 of the Bonner Kunstverein, South London Gallery and Kunstverein Wolfsburg. Little has changed since then, and Kilimnik continues to ride the mock-schlock that has been sustaining her career for so many years. In the current exhibition, she has taken her idea of paintings as installation further by painting one room of the gallery a deep blue (right) and the other room a rich yellow. In each room the mood of the paintings matches the walls with faux romantic paintings of children and animals outdoors in the yellow room, and a darker double of each of these paintings in the blue room, playing on the romantic idea of the doppelgänger. Since she first came to public light in the early 1990s her style has been widely imitated. Although she might lack the sensation and immediate financial success of her imitators she may well outlast them.
Karen Kilimnikarchive
What's on: Karen Kilimnik
Galerie Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, Zürich
30 April 2002