Lauren Kalman: Flourish

Lauren Kalman: Flourish

with excerpts from Devices for Filling a Void

On view October 8 – December 17, 2021 in the Euclid Gallery

Artist Statement

I am invested in using assertive and powerful performances of the female body in relationship to wearable objects and environments. My formative training is in the field of jewelry and contemporary crafts. Over the years my work has transitioned from jewelry as the format of my work to adornment and decoration as the subject of my work. I approach adornment through a variety of methods ranging from traditionally fabricated metal objects, textiles, beading, and ceramics to installation, 3D printing, computer-controlled objects, performance, photography, and video.

In recent history, craft has been recognized as a medium that endures outside of the white, male dominated, contemporary art world. Through my work I seek to not only reclaim the concept of craft and jewelry from their derogatory associations with decoration, frivolity, femininity, and otherness, but also to use these historical associations in powerful representations of counter narratives to dominant culture. As my work deals largely with the female body, it calls upon historical associations with craft and the feminine. I choose to work within the craft traditions building on their association with the body, the senses, the feminine, the erotic, decadence, ritual, wealth, and power in ways that challenge the status quo.

My recent work has utilized a sterile aesthetic borrowed from Modernism combined with adornment and the female body. Fabricated objects that reflect sculptural ornamentation and adornment are combined with the body and design objects to produce photographs. I build objects and environments that interact with the body, and for the majority of my work I use my own body as the site for these interactions. These interactions are frequently documented in photographs and video, and are presented as installations combining images, objects, sculptures, and video. 

Artist Bio

Lauren Kalman is a visual artist based in Detroit, whose practice is invested in the history of adornment, contemporary craft, video, photography and performance. Through her work she investigates beauty, adornment, body image, and the built environment through performances using the female body. 

Raised in the Midwest, Kalman completed her MFA in Art and Technology from the Ohio State University and earned a BFA with a focus in Metals from Massachusetts College of Art. 

Kalman exhibits and lectures internationally. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Cranbrook Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mint Museum, the World Art Museum in Beijing, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris among others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Detroit Institute of Art, and the Museum of Arts and Design. 

She has been awarded residencies at the Bemis Center, the Australian National University, the Corporation of Yaddo, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Brush Creek Arts Foundation, Haystack, and Santa Fe Art Institute. She has received Chenven Foundation, Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Puffin Foundation West, and ISE Cultural Foundation grants.

She has taught at institutions including Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Currently she is an Associate Professor at Wayne State University.

Visit Lauren Kalman’s website.