SANTA MONICA, CA.- Christopher Grimes Gallery is presenting a solo exhibition of new works by Veronika Kellndorfer. This body of work stems from her 2015 solo exhibition at the Casa de Vidro in São Paulo, home of celebrated Italian-born Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi. During this time Kellndorfer also engaged with the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and gardens of Roberto Burle Marx, finding their approach to Brazilian Modernism nascent to a new scope of reference.
For Tropical Modernism: Lina Bo Bardi, Kellndorfer continues working in the process she developed in the early 1990s of silk-screening photographic images to highly reflective glass panels, fusing image to form. In the main gallery, Kellndorfer shows works pairing details of Bo Bardi’s iconic SESC Pompéia in São Paulo with an individual plant species found in the Royal Botanic Garden in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Like Bo Bardi, whose architecture explored reciprocity between the human and the built, Kellndorfer examines the dialog between the playfully Brutalist and culturally dynamic SESC Pompéia and the global selection of various plant species flourishing in Brazil. The South gallery features works referencing Bo Bardi’s architectural treasure: Tree House (Casa de Vidro) as well as two sculptures Casa de Vidro, Quadrado and Casa de Vidro, Triângulo.
Kellndorfer has had exhibitions in museums and institutions around the world, including the Casa de Vidro, Instituto Lina Bo Bardi, São Paulo, Brazil (2015); Architekturmuseum of the Museum Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany (2014); Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA (2013), Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA (2012); and she completed a residency at Villa Aurora, Pacific Palisades, CA (2003). Kellndorfer's work is included in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA; National Gallery, Berlin; and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, among others. Works by Kellndorfer were recently published in Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles by Metropolis books (2015).
