SELENA KIMBALL
BILDER BIOGRAFIE
Primary Sources My work often begins with found texts–books that might help me think through the awkwardness of the present. Making my way through their descriptions and images I find myself searching for signs (an accidental shoulder in the scene, a description repeated like in a dream). Images from the past, even the very recent past, can act as routes or tunnels through “now”. It takes a while. My body is involved. Whose images, whose descriptions, whose maps did we use to get here?
I think about these texts—and the images and descriptions they contain—as part of an image-inheritance that has shaped the geographical imaginary, all the more powerful for having slipped into the obscurity of the past. Pulling them apart I pay attention to the way these images have whispered to me, poisoned me, fed me. This is not an analytical process. My body learned the tricks and I am trying to use my body as a tool to unlearn the text (my hands holding the exacto, cutting the images, pinning them to the wall, spreading the glue along a new joint). I think of each piece, or series, or exhibition, as a new “epic” text that can be physically encountered all at
Meine Arbeit beginnt oft mit gefundenen Texten – Büchern, die mir helfen könnten, über die Unbehaglichkeit der Gegenwart nachzudenken. Wenn ich mich durch ihre Beschreibungen und Bilder arbeite, suche ich nach Zeichen (eine zufällige Schulter in der Szene, eine Beschreibung, die sich wie in einem Traum wiederholt). Bilder aus der Vergangenheit, selbst aus der jüngsten Vergangenheit, können als Wege oder Tunnel durch das “Jetzt” dienen. Es dauert eine Weile. Mein Körper ist involviert. Wessen Bilder, wessen Beschreibungen, wessen Karten haben wir benutzt, um hierher zu gelangen?
Ich betrachte diese Texte – und die Bilder und Beschreibungen, die sie enthalten – als Teil eines Bildererbes, das das geografische Imaginäre geformt hat und das umso mächtiger ist, als es in die Dunkelheit der Vergangenheit gerutscht ist. Wenn ich sie auseinandernehme, achte ich darauf, wie diese Bilder mir zugeflüstert, mich vergiftet, mich genährt haben. Dies ist kein analytischer Prozess. Mein Körper hat die Tricks gelernt, und ich versuche, meinen Körper als Werkzeug zu benutzen, um den Text zu verlernen (meine Hände halten den Exakto, schneiden die Bilder aus, heften sie an die Wand, verteilen den Kleber entlang einer neuen Fuge). Ich betrachte jedes Werk, jede Serie oder Ausstellung als einen neuen “epischen” Text, der auf einmal körperlich erlebt werden kann.
Übersetzt mit www.DeepL.com/Translator (kostenlose Version)
once, without having to turn the pages.
Texts include: The Jefferson Bible (1820); US Military Blogs and Websites (2003-2015); The First Photographic Atlas of the Milky Way by E.E. Barnard (1927); Visual Essays by Joseph Rock published in the National Geographic (1924-1930); Phenomena of Materialization by Albert Von Notzig (1914); Glimpses of the World by John Stoddard (1892); The Chicago World’s Fair Catalog (1893)
Selena Kimball is a visual artist whose work—large-scale photomontage, installation, film and book projects—mines the images that have shaped the phenomenal world. Her focus, in particular, is on the photographic evidence that occupies the space between the document and fiction. A native of Maine, Kimball earned her BFA in sculpture from The Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA in combined media from Hunter College. She is an NYSCA/ NYFA and MacDowell fellow, a recipient of two Pollock-Krasner awards, the Jerome Foundation Study and Travel grant, and an Asian Cultural Council Award.
Kimball has had solo exhibitions at Wolfstaedter Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany (2018, 2015, 2013, 2012), The Gallery@1GAP at Richard Meier on Prospect Park (2018), Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York City (2015), and Entropia Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland (2012). Kimball was invited as part of a commissioned “silent” sound series that included Sophie Calle at Temple Contemporary curated by Rob Blackson (2012). She has exhibited internationally in group exhibitions at Bates College Museum of Art, Maine (2014), 33 Orchard, New York City (2014), the Katonah Museum of Art, New York (2013), Feature, Inc., New York City (2011, 2013), The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Missouri (2012), The Portland Museum of Art, Maine (2012) Eastern Bloc Centre for New Media and Interdisciplinary Art, Montreal, Canada (2011), Participant, New York City (2011), Yautepec Gallery, Mexico City (2009). Her work has been reviewed in The Boston Globe, Frankfurter Zeitung, and The New York Observer.
In addition to solo work, Kimball has embraced long-term collaborations. Shortly after graduating from RISD in 2007, Kimball began to collaborate on book projects with the Polish writer and art historian Agnieszka Taborska. Their first was the collage novel The Dreaming Life of Leonora de La Cruz (editions include: Gdansk 2004/ reprinted in 2013, slowo/obraz teryrtoria; New York 2007, Midmarch Arts Press; Paris 2007, Édition Interférences; Mexico City, Auieo Ediciones 2014) and their most recent book “The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks” received the Stanislaus Roskam PTKW award for “the most beautiful book of the year”. It was published by slowo/obraz teryrtoria, Gdansk, Poland in October of 2013.. Exhibitions of the collages from this collaboration have been mounted at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Warsaw (2001), Krytyków Pokaz Gallery, Warsaw (2004), and Szara Kamienica Gallery, Krakow (2013).
Kimball’s transdisciplinary collaboration with the visual anthropologist Alyssa Grossman comes out of a mutual interest in history, memory and the everyday. Their work has been shown internationally over the last two decades, with screenings and installations at the Museum Hat Valkhof, Nijmegen, the Netherlands (2014), the National Museum of Estonia, Tartu (2013), the Arkipel International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival, Indonesia (2013), The Future Perfect Gallery, Singapore (2013), Worldfilm Festival of Visual Culture, Estonia (2013), The 6th Experimental Film Festival, Bangkok (2012) and the Festival of Visual Anthropology, Poland (2012), among others. Working as the collective General Assn. they are currently finishing a project about rocks housed within the Gothenburg Museum of World Culture Archives in Sweden.
Contact: selenakimball@gmail.com
Selena Kimball CV link
Selena Kimball
b. Bangor Maine, Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and Brooksville, Maine
Solo Exhibitions
2018 Even the Stars Were a Mess, Wolfstaedter Gallery, Frankfurt Germany
2017 Readings, 1GAP Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2015 Night Vision, Morgan Lehman Gallery , New York, NY
2015 Florilegia, Wolfstaedter Gallery, Frankfurt Germany
2013 No One Came to Meet Me, Wolfstaedter Gallery, Frankfurt Germany
2013 Split/ Doubles, Anita S. Wooten Gallery, Valencia Community College, Orlando, FL
2012 what they would have left out if they could, sound series, Temple Contemporary, Philadelphia, PA
2012 self must have a certain width, Wolfstaedter Gallery, Frankfurt Germany
2012 Things That (Dis)appear, Entropia Gallery, Wroclaw Poland
2009 The New World, Third Ward, Brooklyn, NY
2004 Selena Kimball, Pokaz Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2004 Collage, The Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland
2001 Fragments of the Ordinary, Hudson Museum, Orono, ME
2001 Romanian Cultural Center, New York, NY
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022 Recurrent, Ulterior Gallery, New York, NY
2022 XX, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
2021 Selena Kimball, Christian Gruber, Wolfsteadter Gallery, Frankfurt Germany
2016 Perfect Day, Wolfsteadter Gallery, Frankfurt Germany
2016 Summer Show, Allouche Gallery, New York, NY
2016 Volta New York, Solo Booth with Wolfstaedter Gallery
2016 Material Matters: Water, Pigment, Light, Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College, Davidson, NC
2015 Exquisite Corpse, Planthouse Gallery, New York, NY
2015 Anchor, East Harlem Hunter Gallery, New York, NY 2014
2015 Let’s Go Let Go, 33 Orchard, New York, NY
2015 Remix, Selections from the ICC, Bates College Museum of Art, Maine
2015 The Eye Never Sleeps, Fundacja Kultury Rozruch, Poland
2015 This Red Door, Kunthshalle Galapagos, Brooklyn, NY
2015 Cut and Paste, Grizzly Grizzly, Philadelphia, PA
2013 i want that inside me, Feature Inc., New York, NY
2013 Memory Objects, Memory Dialogues, National Museum of Estonia, Tartu, Estonia
2013 Conspirators, Szara Kamienica Gallery, Krakow, Poland
2013 Decisiveness, Helper (in collaboration with ruSalon), Brooklyn, NY
2013 Remix, Selections from the ICC, Traveling Exhibition: Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, Knoxville, TN
2013 Masterpieces of Everyday New York: Objects as Story, Kellen Gallery, The New School, New York, NY
2012 Self Portraits and Other Persons, Wolfstaedter Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany
2012 Remix, Selections from the ICC, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Missouri
2011 I Am Not Monogamous, I Heart Poetry, Feature Inc., New York, NY
2011 Collage to the Power of Four: Drsachan, Kimball, Exner and Braun, Stattbad Gallery, Neuwied, Germany
2011 Preview Berlin, Wolfstaedter Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2011 Elia Bettaglio, Selena Kimball & Tatiana Simonova: Drawings, Space Gallery, Portland, ME
2011 Collage Logic, Harvestworks Governors Island Project, New York, NY
2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
2010 Collective Show New York 2010, Participant Inc, New York, NY
2010 Fragments, Parlour, New York, NY
2010 The Narrative Arc, University of North Texas Art Gallery, Denton, TX
2010 Paper Trails: Works from the New York Metro, Pearce Gallery, Whitecliffe College of Art and Design, Auckland, New Zealand
2010 Synaptic Mimes, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2010 Mirror Images, Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 The World is Not Enough, Online Exhibition curated by Carl Ferrero
2010 Visionary Drawings, a project by Matt Bua and David Goldfarb at Kidspace, MassMoca, North Adams, MA
2009 Inferno, Yautepec Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico
2009 Between the Acts, curated by Jennifer Dudley, Parlour, New York, NY
2009 tART @ A.I.R., A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2009 Personal Political, Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany
2009 As Such As Well As An Assumption, T.B.D., Brooklyn, NY
2007 A History of Things I Remember but Will Never See, MFA Thesis Show, Times Square Gallery, Hunter College, New York, NY
2006 Parallel, The Design Center, New York, NY
2005 MA’s Select MFA’s, Times Square Gallery, Hunter College, New York, NY
2005 Peace, The Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
2004 Your Heart is No Match for My Love, The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN
2001 Attitudes, Artifacts and Images, Museum of the Romanian Peasant, Bucharest, Romania
Awards, Grants, Residencies
2021 Pollock-Krasner Grant
2021 Arctic Circle Residency Award
2020 NYSCA/ NYFA Fellowship Award
2019 American Academy in Rome, Parsons Affiliated Fellow
2018 Asian Cultural Council Grantee
2017 MacDowell Colony Residency, Eleanor Briggs Fellowship
2015 Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Award
2015 Pollock-Krasner Grant
2011 MacDowell Colony Residency Award, Kate and George Kendall Fellow
2010 Blue Mountain Center, Fellowship Recipient, Blue Mountain Lake, NY
2009 Millay Colony for Artists, Fellowship Recipient, Austerlitz, NY
2008 Presidential Travel Award, Hunter College, CUNY
2006 Zankel Award, Hunter College, CUNY
2002 Maine Arts Commission Grant
1995 Sylvia Leslie Young Award for excellence in sculpture, Rhode Island School of Design
Collaborations
2014 Museum Hat Valkhof, with General Assn., Screening
2013 National Museum of Estonia, Tartu, with General Assn., Film Installation
2013 Arkipel international documentary and experimental film festival, Indonesia, with General
Assn.
2013 Future Perfect Gallery, Singapore, with General Assn., Film Screening
2012 6th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, “Raiding the Archives”, with General Assn.
2011 Ethnographic Terminalia, the Eastern Bloc Centre for New Media and Interdisciplinary
Art, with General Assn.
Publications (as Author)
2022 “Involuntary Catalog” (Artist’s Book), Anthropology & Art, Royal Anthropological
Institute (forthcoming)
2021 “Beyond the Edges of the Screen: Longing for the Physical “Spaces Between” (Journal Article) Anthropology in Action, December (with Alyssa Grossman)
2018 “what comes after the letter”, Suomen Antropologi, Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 43 (2)
2018 “OBJECT AMERICA”, Public Seminar, The New School for Social Research (with Pascal Glissmann
2014 The Dreaming Life of Leonora de La Cruz, Collaborative Collage Novel with Agnieszka Taborska, AIEO; also published in French by Editions Interferences, Paris (2007); in English by Midmarch Press, New York City (2007); and in Polish by fundacja terytoria ksiazki (2011/ 2004)
2013 The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks, Collaborative Collage Novel with Agnieszka Taborska, fundacja terytoria ksiazki, Poland
2009 “The Memory Archive: Filmic Collaborations in Art and Anthropology.” Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 9 (1), Fieldwork and Interdisciplinary Modes of Knowing (with Alyssa Grossman)
Bibliography
2017 Grossman, Alyssa. ‘Counter-Factual Provocations in the Ethnographic Archive.’ Oxford
Artistic and Practice Based Research Platform 2, 2017, pp. 126-138.
2016 Shutte, Christoph. “In Times of War, Anett Frontzak and Selena Kimball at Wolfstaedter Gallery” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 08
2016 Churner, Rachel. Catalog Essay “Night Vision”
2015 Doran, Anne. “Selena Kimball”, Tricycle, Spring p.28
2015 Cotter, Holland. “10 Galleries to Visit on the Upper East Side”, The New York Times, April 16
2015 Heddaya, Mostafa,.“High Contrast: Art and Community in East Harlem”, Artinfo.com, April 13
2014 Nowicka, Sara. “Phoebe Hicks” Art Paper, January 11, (book review, in Polish)
2014 Dunin, Kinga. “Reading Political Critique: The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks”
krytykapolityczna.pl, March 24 (book review, in Polish)
2014 Gorska, Marta. “(Not) Deadly Serious” kulturaonline.pl, February 26, 2014. (book review, in Polish)
2014 Grossman, Alyssa. ‘Memory Objects, Memory Dialogues: Common-sense Experiments in Visual Anthropology.’ In A. Schneider and C. Pasqualino (eds), Experimental Film and Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 131-145.
2013 Zoubok, Pavel. Remix: Selections from the International Collage Center, exhibition catalogue, traveling exhibition
2013 Heinrich, Will. “I Want That Inside Me at Feature, Inc.” The New York Observer, July 07
2013 Young, Jessica Brye. “Split/ Doubles at Wooten Gallery”, Orlando Weekly, January 16
2012 Shutte, Christoph. “Fact and Fiction, Selena Kimball at Wolfstaedter Gallery” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 15
2012 Chojnowski, Grzegorz. Radio Interveiw, Radio Wrocław, Wrocław Poland, January 29
2012 Prodeus, Adriana. Television Interview, Culture Magazine, TVP1, Warsaw Poland, aired January 21
2011 Shutte, Christoph. “Variation and Repetition, Kimball and Loretan at Wolfstaedter Gallery” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 09
2011 Smee. Sebastian. “Biennial Hits—and misses”, The Boston Globe, May 8
2011 Konau, Britta. “art current: The Portland Museum of Art Biennial”, The Free Press, April
2011 Kany, Daniel. “Art Review: Every decade or so, PMA’s Biennial is extra special”, The Maine Sunday Telegram, April 17
2010 Scheps, Manya. “Synaptic Mimes: The Private Spectacular”, Philadelphia Weekly, April 13
2009 “Selena Kimball”, Third Ward, Summer 2009: Volume #4
2008 Kucharski, Anne-Marie. “La Vie Songeuse de la Leonora de la Cruz”, ArtsLivres.com, January 12 (book review in French)
2008 Sulser, Elenore. “Poetic Hagiography”, The Times Saturday Cultural Section (Paris), Dec 8 (book review in French)
2007 Benech, Sophie. “La Vie Songeuse de la Leonora de la Cruz”, Radio France on the Web,
france-culture.com, December 14 (book review in French)
2005 Kawalerowicz, Konga. “Who Is Leonora de la Cruz?” Zwierciadlo, (book review in Polish) 2004 Baranowska, Malgorzata. “The Surreal Life of Leonora de la Cruz”, Gazeta Wyborcza
(Warsaw), February 24 (book review in Polish)
2004 Mikolejko, Zbigniew. “The Martyr of Dreams and Hope”, Nowe Ksiazki, 2004. (book review in Polish)
2004 Staniszewski, Jacek. “The Life of the Saint, Reality Guillotined”, Exklusiv, (book review in
Polish)
2001 Faust, Lily. “Selena Kimball & Alyssa Grossman”, M/ The New York Art World, May
2000 Nicolau, Irina. “From the Neolithic to Coca Cola”, 22, Edited by the Group for Social Dialogue, Bucharest, October
Selected Lectures and Panels
2020 Panel Discussion “Old News, The Afterlife of Newspaper”, Futures Conference, Association of Critical Heritage Studies at the University College, London
2020 Artist Lecture, Fordham University, New York, NY
2016 Panel Discussion, Armory POW art Colleagues and Friends, New York, NY
2016 Visiting Artist Lecture “A Brief History of Things I Haven’t Seen”, Bardo Art Center,
College of Fine + Performing Arts, Western Carolina University
2014 Artist Talk, Brooklyn Museum Contemporary Arts Council, New York, NY
2014 Visiting Artist Lecture, Rutgers, New Brunswick, NJ
2013 Visiting Artist Talk, College of Visual Arts + Design, University of North Texas, Denton
2012 Artist Talk, Katonah Museum, Katonah, New York
2012 Public Artist Talk, Valencia Community College, Orlando Florida
2012 Panel Discussion, Artistic Fictions/ Fictional Artists, New York Public Library
2012 Exhibition Lecture, “Things That Dissappear”, Galeria Entropia, Wroclaw, Poland
2011 Exhibition Talk, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
2011 Visiting Artist, Cooper Union, New York, NY
2010 Public Talk, Art Forum Lecture Series, Montclair State University, NJ
2010 Lecture, “The History of Ectoplasm”, Participant, Inc, New York, NY
2009 Artist Lecture, George Mason University School of the Arts, Fairfax, NJ
Education
2007 M.F.A. in Combined Media, Hunter College, CUNY, New York, NY
1997 B.F.A. in Sculpture, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
1992-94 Comparative Literature, Brown University, Providence, RI
Teaching
2020-Present Associate Professor of Contemporary Art Practice, Parsons, The New School
2012-2020 Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art Practice, Parsons, The New School
