News

KLEA McKENNA reviewed in PHOTOGRAPH

By Michael Wilson

If the photogram is ordinarily associated with a shadowy ephemerality, San Francisco artist Klea McKenna’s approach to the form invests it with a physical heft more often linked to printmaking, or even sculpture...In her Generation series, McKenna redirects her lens toward the human realm, depicting textiles transformed by wear and tear into haunting records of women’s experiences – narratives removed from McKenna’s own by the specificities of time and place but united with it in other ways. La China Poblana (1), 2018, for example, embodies a fascinating intersection of cultural identities in its depiction of an old skirt encrusted with sequins. This traditional garment tells the story of a Rajasthani woman who, in the late 1600s, was kidnapped, sold into slavery, and taken to the Mexican city of Puebla, where she eventually married a wealthy merchant.

KLEA McKENNA reviewed in MUSÉE MAGAZINE

by Adam Ethan Berner

The photograms render their subjects in incredibly intimate detail; each stitching shines through the silvery imprint, lines and creases transforming from marks to be fixed into something ethereal and beautiful. Even a seemingly tangled scattering of 48 nylon stockings becomes a beautiful composition of fabric, a twisting and flowing set of silvery smoke that beckons the viewer to imagine what is and what could be...It reveals the life and labor that took place to create these works in the first place, highlighting the identities of those who had been rendered invisible by the unconscious assumption that objects like these just appear without the labor of actual people...Each crease, each line, each stitching, and each decoration becomes a testament to the lives of those who made these works, like the creation of a soul now passed onto the viewer.

KLEA McKENNA in COLLECTOR DAILY 

By Richard B. Woodward

Over the last 5 years, Klea McKenna has repeatedly proven herself to be a contemporary master of the photogram. A technical innovator who has nonetheless remained true to this primal act of the medium—writing on pieces of paper with light—she has created ravishing prints that incorporate nature into the process of their emanation, an artistic philosophy that reflects an unconventional upbringing in northern California.

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ALLEN FRAME: INNAMORATO
curated by LIA GANGITANO

October 3 – December 14

Opening reception Wednesday, October 3, 6–8 pm

PRATT INSTITUTE PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY
ARC Building, Lower Level, Brooklyn, NY 11205

DIRECTIONS: If coming by subway, take the G train to the Clinton-Washington station and use the Washington Avenue exit. Walk up Washington Avenue one block to Dekalb Avenue and take a right one block to Hall Street. Enter the campus at the corner of Dekalb Avenue and Hall Street. Walk through campus to the ARC building at the end. It is a two story building with many triangular roofs.
link to more directions      link to campus map

Pratt Gallery hours: Monday–Friday, 11 AM–5 PM
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California based artists KLEA McKENNA and Aspen Mays in conversation with Joshua Chuang (Senior Curator of Photography, New York Public Library)

PENUMBRA ARTIST SERIES
Friday, September 14th, 7:00 pm

KLEA McKENNA in QUIET LUNCH

By Kurt McVey

Her work, as she sees it, though aesthetically gorgeous, sensual and mysterious, is dependent on the idea that these things, the sinewy, ghostly photograms-a physical and yet metaphysical expression of these textiles-have something to say for themselves. “They’re not just dead matter.”

KLEA McKENNA: Generation

Gitterman Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of contemporary work by Klea McKenna. The exhibition opens on Wednesday, September 12th from 6–8 p.m. and continues through Saturday, November 10th.  

This exhibition marks her first solo show in New York and the beginning of her representation by Gitterman Gallery. It is presented in association with Von Lintel Gallery in Los Angeles where McKenna will have a concurrent exhibition from September 7th through October 20th.
 
The exhibition presents McKenna's most recent work Generation alongside work from two of her previous series Automatic Earth and Web Studies. With each series, McKenna uses the photogram process innovatively to create unique gelatin silver prints that contain both vivid detail and ethereal abstraction. She pays homage to her subject's histories while re-animating them through her engagement, revealing nuance, depth and energy.

We are proud to announce the representation of KLEA McKENNA

JOSEPH SZABO in THE NEW YORKER

Three Decades of Lifeguards at New York’s Jones Beach
By Andrea DenHoed

An avid chronicler of American youth, Szabo began taking pictures at Jones Beach in 1960, and returned year after year to capture the diverse human menagerie that gathers every summer: the evolving styles of swimsuits, the near-naked bodies in their limitless variety, the jubilance and intimacy of a day at the beach. Floating above it all, in Szabo’s scenes, is the figure of the lifeguard, on a high perch, upright and vigilant amid the languid bodies and umbrellas below. Sometimes they are a taken-for-granted part of the landscape, their chairs blending into a wide-angle view of the crowd; sometimes they’re godlike, on a literal pedestal and shot from the ground.

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JOSEPH SZABO in THE NEW YORK TIMES

‘Baywatch’ Gets Its Game Face On
By John Leland

Joseph Szabo photographed the lifeguards at Jones Beach for 25 years. He saw things that most of us never will. 

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