Archive for 2010
KIMBERLY BROOKS: Lecture at LACMA
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010KIMBERLY BROOKS: Vogue
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
Mona Lisas, by Olga Ruiz, Vogue Espana April 2010.
KIMBERLY BROOKS: Daily Serving
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
KIMBERLY BROOKS: The Stylist Project, by Allison Gibson
March 17, 2010
The art world. It’s way more serious and important than every other industry! This thinking at least seems to persist even though the field of contemporary art has maintained an open flirtation with its sassy sister, the fashion industry, since long before even Andy Warhol trotted his wacky wigs around Studio 54 with the likes of Diane von Fürstenberg. There is a mutual fascination between the two fields, and yet it seems that the art world would prefer to keep its consorting with the fashion industry confined strictly to social events, rather than consider fashion (so low-brow!) as a worthy subject matter for actual works of art.
Los Angeles-based artist, Kimberly Brooks‘, current solo show at Taylor De Cordoba gallery in Culver City breaks with this norm to explore the intrigue of the fashion industry’s most iconic stylemakers—without the precept of farce or condemnation. The Stylist Project (on view through April 3rd) presents Brooks’ latest body of work—a series of oil painted portraits of fashion industry insiders, including stylist to the starts and Bravo TV fixture, Rachel Zoe, and award winning costume designer and Madonnaʼs personal stylist Arianne Phillips, among others.
The work on view blends the fields of art and fashion astutely, presenting the fashionable set as they have styled themselves, while at the same time drawing upon the ages-old artistic tradition of portraiture. The regal positions of some of the sitters recall Renaissance royals, and the sprawled poses of others touch on the early Modern depiction of courtesans, such as Edouard Manet’s Olympia…
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KIMBERLY BROOKS: Los Angeles Times Magazine
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
ROGUES’ GALLERY
Pop stars have fascinated contemporary artists for years—think Andy Warhol, Richard Prince and Elizabeth Peyton. Painter Kimberly Brooks now trains her eye on those who labor to make them popular. The Stylist Project includes portraits of L.A. tastemakers, including (clockwise from top left) celebrity stylist Elizabeth Stewart, Rose Apodaca (co-owner of A+R) and costume designer Janie Bryant (Mad Men). Through April 3. Taylor De Cordoba Gallery, 2660 S. La Cienega Blvd., L.A., 310-559-9156, taylordecordoba.com.
Click HERE to see the full article.
KIMBERLY BROOKS: 944 Magazine
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Kimberly Brooks Gets Meta with the Stylist Project.
DANIELLE NELSON MOURNING: Homecoming
Monday, March 1st, 2010May 22 – June 26, 2010
Taylor De Cordoba is proud to present Homecoming, photographs and film by San Francisco-based artist Danielle Nelson Mourning. The exhibition will run from May 22 – June 26, 2010, with an opening reception for the artist on Saturday, May 22 from 6 – 8PM.
For the artist’s solo debut at Taylor De Cordoba, Mourning will exhibit films and strikingly vivid ink jet photographs taken in areas laden with her family history. Traveling between Niagara Falls, New York and Marks, Mississippi the artist staged a series of primarily self-portraits wherein she slips in and out of the homes, attire and settings of her relatives. A desire to surround herself with family lore, which she had only seen in snapshots and heard in oft-repeated stories, motivated her desire to recreate/create this history. The resulting photographs inhabit an eerie space between real and fake. She plays many characters: a 1950s housewife; a1960s wife on the eve of the sexual revolution; and a 1970s liberated woman, with the mood moving from Alfred Hitchcock to John Cassavetes and back again. While at first glance it appears as though the photographs were taken during those past eras, there is something knowing in the artist’s eye, or perhaps her stance, that reminds viewers of the current historical moment.
The work goes deeper in the series of images Mourning staged in Ireland, an interpretation of her Irish ancestry during the potato famine of 1845. Here, she dresses in attire from the day and situates herself in the landscape of her ancestors. This became a psychological experience for the artist, who felt the boundaries between past and personal history eroding.
Alongside the photographs, the gallery will be exhibiting the artist’s intimate 8mm film, made on location in New York and Mississippi. The photographs come to life here, as the viewer recognizes Mourning’s characters moving about perfectly manicured rooms and landscapes. She complements the moving images with a soundtrack of taped conversations with her grandmother. The resulting effect is strange, haunting and timeless.
KIMBERLY BROOKS: The Stylist Project
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Kimberly Brooks: The Stylist Project
February 27 – April 3, 2010
Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present The Stylist Project, a solo exhibition of new oil paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Kimberly Brooks. The exhibition will run from February 27 – April 3. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday, February 27th from 6pm-8pm.
The Stylist Project is the first in a series of portraits of renowned stylists and fashion industry insiders who have styled themselves and posed for the artist. After delving into deeply personal subject matter for her last two exhibitions – “Momʼs Friends” in 2007 and “Technicolor Summer” in 2008 – Brooks shifts her focus outward with this new body of work. Here, she broaches the red-hot themes of fashion, style and those omnisciently responsible for setting the trends.
This exhibition features portraits of LAʼs most influential style-makers including celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe; costume designer and Madonnaʼs personal stylist Arianne Phillips; New York Times stylist Elizabeth Stewart and Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant, among others. While many of the stylists are unknown to the general public, this work turns the spotlight on them, raising questions about who is really in charge of what wear and how we choose to present ourselves. Brooksʼ paintings portray a dynamic exchange between two artists: the painter and the stylists — both of whom use various props, settings, lighting, fashion and accessories to set the canvasʼ stage.
Kimberly Brooksʼ work has been featured in numerous juried exhibitions organized by curators from the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Art Ltd., The Huffington Post, Vanity Fair, Elle, C Magazine among other publications.
For additional information and images, please contact Heather Taylor at 310-559-9156 or heather@taylordecordoba.com. Taylor De Cordoba is located at 2660 South La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90034.
KIMBERLY BROOKS: The Los Angeles Times
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
“Portraits in Style” by Victoria Namkung, Feb. 21, 2010
Fashion stylists once worked behind the scenes, their faceless names relegated to the credit pages of magazines. But lately some have been stepping into the spotlight (hello, Rachel Zoe), gaining recognition for the important role they play when it comes to trends, the red carpet and popular culture.
Artist Kimberly Brooks became so enamored of stylists that she has dedicated an entire exhibition to the trade. “The Stylist Project” opens with a public reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Taylor De Cordoba in Culver City, and the fashion world will be watching.
Featuring a dozen portraits of L.A.’s top stylists, costume designers and influential tastemakers, the exhibition includes subjects such as Zoe, Andrea Lieberman, Liz Goldwyn, Cameron Silver and Elizabeth Stewart, who styled themselves for individual photo shoots with Brooks. The artist then spent up to 80 hours creating each painting.
“Painting portraits of live people is a huge responsibility,” Brooks said in a recent interview. “You can’t help but to inhale their energy and the mood, and then you have to translate that on canvas with color and body language”…
Click HERE to see the full article.
The Stylist Project: New Oil Paintings by Kimberly Brooks
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
LOS ANGELES, CA
Taylor De Cordoba
2660 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Feb 27 – April 3rd, 2010
Artist Reception:
Sat Feb 27, 6 – 8 PM
SASHA BEZZUBOV+ JESSICA SUCHER: Frieze
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
Review of Sasha Bezzubov and Jessica Sucher’s recent exhibition, The Searchers, in Frieze Magazine by Christy Lange.
Do you have one of those friends who disappeared to India for a month to find himself? Did he come back with a beard? Does he meditate every morning? Do you believe he’s found spiritual enlightenment, or do you have a nagging feeling that it’s all a bit of phoney baloney? If you’re anything like me, you can’t help wondering how people from the USA or Europe can buy a plane ticket to Mumbai, visit a couple of places that cater to tourists, and come back swearing they’ve ‘experienced’ the culture.
It’s a subject that’s as easy to satirize as it is to romanticize, and it’s this prickly theme that American artists Sasha Bezzubov and Jessica Sucher tackle in their photographic series ‘The Searchers’ (2006). These intimate, unapologetically beautiful photos of Western spiritual tourists in India don’t aim for conceptual objectivity or distance. Instead, they’re drenched in an ethereal, almost otherworldly light. Each of the titles of the five portraits reveals the subject’s home country, so it’s possible to imagine their biographies. Emily (Australia), for instance, wears the local garb of beaded jewellery and an embroidered scarf. I try to read her face for hints that she’s reached another plane of consciousness, but her stare is both penetrating and empty…
Click HERE to read the full text.
