Kim Abeles, “Social Furniture (1976-2023)”
Curated by Mika Cho
Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery
September 14 – October 28, 2023

Presenting the exhibition, "Kim Abeles: Social Furniture (1976-2023)," features her sculpture, large-scale installations, and mixed media artworks created between 1976-2023. These works are engaged with the environment, historical narratives, feminism, geography, and social sciences. Her images are reflections of life in the 20th and 21st centuries, and they are made with smog, landscapes discovered through geographic systems, collected objects, portraiture across cultural zones, and any means of empowerment adopted by man in his modern world.

The exhibition comprises six unique but interwoven sections with over sixty artworks: "Human Nature," "Documents," "Body of Voices," "Atmosphere," "Frugalworld," and "Space + Time." Abeles said, "The tables and chairs I've built through the years serve as forms to house concepts. As a functional construct, the individual takes their seat at the table. In metaphor, these are formats to express a portrait, relay a process, or consider our reverence for objects. The chair is a persona, and the table implies community. I want viewers to experience through the process, and the resulting artworks about the individual connection with the world that touches them".

Abeles has worked on community-based projects for over three decades, and the exhibition includes "Pearls of Wisdom" and "End the Violence." The latter was created in collaboration with the organization "A Window Between Worlds" to address domestic violence. Her work, "The Importance of Objects" (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County), features elements of the museum. In "Resilience: A Living Room," Abeles conveys her artist-in-residence experience at the Institute of Forest Genetics, funded through the El Dorado Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts. Her "Social Practice" involves individuals, which is evident in "Equidistant Inland Empire," made possible with photographs by people in the region.

Abeles' work may be divided into two distinct spheres. One is on nature, and she treats it as a mystical experience beyond words but within the sphere of artistic valuation. The other is the world of men, which embodies the random but purposeful and subjective constructs that are formed by individual ontologies in their social spaces. Carefully curated and installed by Mika Cho and Kim Ables with the support of the hard-working gallery student staff, this exhibition genuinely shares Kim's complex and compelling art world.

Mika M. Cho, Director, Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery