{"product_id":"karen-kilimnik-photographs","title":"Karen Kilimnik – Photographs","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter Drawings (1997), Paintings (2001) and Kirschgarten (2005), Photographs is the fourth artist’s book by the Philadelphiaborn and based Karen Kilimnik\r\n (b.1955) to be published by Edition Patrick Frey. It brings together \r\nthe sporadically exhibited and by and large unknown photographic works \r\nof the artist, who gained fame in the 1980s with her “scatter art” \r\ninstallations and later with her paintings. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKaren Kilimnik takes \r\npictures with the same gesture she paints with: an unerring sense of the\r\n glut of shiny surface beauty, under which lurk the shades of monstrous \r\nthings unseen and unspoken. She takes pictures with a shrewd, informed \r\neye. She adores kitsch, but she knows how phony it is and how much this \r\nphoniness makes it irresistible. She is a wise old soul but she’s \r\nabsolutely determined to preserve the innocence and vulnerability of a \r\nyoung and restless mind. In Bourdieu’s words, her photography strikes a \r\nperfect balance between the “ritual” and the “artistic.” Kilimnik takes \r\npictures of what she unconditionally loves, and this love is eclectic \r\nand deeply darkly romantic. She photographs idylls ad nauseam: the \r\nrolling hills of the Cotswolds in south central England, so leafy they \r\nalmost seem unreal; a ladies’ bicycle, hedge-lined streets, sheep in the\r\n shadow of a tree, cows in the morning mist, a squirrel that seems to be\r\n nibbling on a flower, sitting ducks on the banks of a stream. Kilimnik \r\nviews profane reality through the mercilessly wide-open eyes of her \r\ncamera lens, transforming it in her photographs into a stage for her \r\nfabulously dreamy \/ nightmarish fairytale figurations and arrangements. \r\nWhen reality does not suffice, she embellishes it, trimming the trees in\r\n the garden, for example, with glass Christmas ornaments or with fairy \r\nlights. Running through Kilimnik’s photographic work are several motifs \r\nwe know from her painting. And the two come together in her obsession \r\nwith photographing details from her own paintings over and  over again, \r\nsuch as the magnificent palace walls she has painted, as though \r\nbeseeching us to agree that her painted fictions are no less real than \r\nso-called reality. She arranges precious vials, bone china, silverware, \r\ncostume jewelry and roses on shiny silk fabrics, and captures them as \r\nthough in a slight mist of the fragrance “Elizabethan Rose” — officially\r\n described by its manufacturer, the English perfume house of \r\nPenhaligon’s, as “deliciously intoxicating rather than sweet, capturing \r\nthe scent of high summer.” Kilimnik has a knack for taking magical \r\nsnap-shots — a tiny pile of snow on the grass takes the shape of a \r\nlittle rabbit. And she knows that the white fog of light in an \r\noverexposed picture can make a house look haunted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe sometimes \r\nhas a roving eye, with a terrific feel for the allure and for the \r\nmetamorphic power of soft focus, and then becomes targeted and sharply \r\nfocused again. She strays through her world taking pictures of what \r\nappeals to her: flowers — they never cease to amaze her, the eye of the \r\ncamera strolls through meadows and seems to be immersed in bouquets and \r\nblossoms — ; a basket of fresh vegetables like something out of a \r\nCecelia Ahern novel; ballet scenes, among which her own scenery for \r\nPsyché at the Paris Opera; food photography ranging from delicate to \r\ndégoutant; a lane lined with old lowslung brick buildings in \r\nPhiladelphia, where she grew up, photos of a TV screen showing \r\nchildren’s faces in a film about the Holocaust, veritable orgies of \r\nchandeliers, fuzzy airport lights glittering like sequins, storm-tossed \r\ntreetops shrouded in mist, a dead bird, the Venetian Lagoon, winter \r\nlandscapes with snowflakes falling like little lights, Central Park with\r\n a horse-drawn carriage in the snow, or a slightly blurred shot of the \r\nFlatiron Building behind leafless trees, like a famous vintage print \r\nwe’re sure we’ve seen somewhere before\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"product__details-column product__details-column--full product__details-column--1\"\u003e\r\n              \u003cdiv class=\"book-details-item\"\u003e\r\n    \u003cdiv class=\"product__ product__--full\"\u003eEdition Patrick Frey \u003cbr\u003eN° \r\n158\r\n\r\n                \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n  \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n                        \u003cdiv class=\"book-details-item\"\u003e\r\n    \u003cdiv class=\"product__ product__--full\"\u003e\r\n                          1. edition \r\n\u003ctime datetime=\"2014-09-03T12:00:00Z\"\u003e2014\u003c\/time\u003e\r\n\r\n              \r\n                \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n  \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n              \u003cdiv class=\"book-details-item\"\u003e\r\n    \u003cdiv class=\"product__isbn product__isbn--full\"\u003e\r\n              ISBN:                    \r\n978-3-905929-58-4\r\n\r\n          \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n  \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n                  \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n        \u003cdiv class=\"product__details-column product__details-column--full product__details-column--2\"\u003e\r\n              \u003cdiv class=\"book-details-item\"\u003e\r\n    \u003cdiv class=\"product__pages product__pages--full\"\u003e\r\n                          Hardcover, 252 pages, 251 color images                \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n  \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n              \u003cdiv class=\"book-details-item\"\u003e\r\n    \u003cdiv class=\"product__ product__--full\"\u003e\r\n                    \r\n21.7 × 23.5 cm\r\n\r\n          \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n  \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n        \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n        \u003cdiv class=\"product__people product__people--full\"\u003e\r\n\r\n              \u003cdiv class=\"book-details-item\"\u003e\r\n    \u003cdiv class=\"product__artist product__artist--full\"\u003e\r\n              Artist:                    \r\nKaren Kilimnik\r\n\r\n          \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n  \u003c\/div\u003e\r\n                        \u003cdiv class=\"book-details-item\"\u003e\r\n    \u003cdiv class=\"product__designer product__designer--full\"\u003e\r\n              Designer:                    \r\nHanna Williamson-Koller\u003c\/div\u003e\r\n  \u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Flee Project","offers":[{"title":"Photographs","offer_id":57327856943481,"sku":null,"price":60.0,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0981\/4510\/8345\/files\/karen-kilimnik-photographs-art-design-import-949-8342-2.jpg?v=1779713620","url":"https:\/\/saalhof1123.com\/products\/karen-kilimnik-photographs","provider":"SAALHOF 1123","version":"1.0","type":"link"}