This group show at Simone Subal takes the work of Kiki Kogelnik (1935-1997) as its muse. The Austrian-born Pop artist’s radical uses of new materials to explore the body, relationality and technology were prescient, intersecting with emerging discourses about feminism and appropriation. Kogelnik has fortunately become more known in the U.S. since she was included in “Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958-1968” at the Brooklyn Museum in 2010, and since Subal first showed her work in 2012. Yet this exhibition, which juxtaposes Kogelnik’s work with efforts by seven young artists, comes across as a revelation. Paintings by Sanya Kantarovsky, Mira Dancy, Emily Mae Smith and Sonia Almeida draw variously on Kogelnik’s preferences for lurid hues and corporal fragmentation, while the artist’s exploration of synthetic, visceral materials emulating skinlike surfaces resonates with sculptures by Alisa Baremboym, Dora Budor and Sara Greenberger Rafferty.
Pictured: View of “Untitled Body Parts,” 2016, at Simone Subal. Courtesy Simone Subal, New York.