Device For Filling a Void (8) 2017
Devices for Filling a Void are fabricated from gold-plated electroformed copper, brass and silver; slip cast and hand-built ceramics; and glass that are molded to the body. These objects and then used to produce performance photographs.
Devices for Filling a Void literally fill the voids of the body, but also implies a psychological filling of emotional or erotic voids. The works point to ideas about women being incomplete or lacking, requiring augmentation by men, objects, dress, makeup, and adornment.
Some of the works in this series take on an association with absent bodies, like lovers or children. The objects relationship with the body projects a feeling of being simultaneously nurturing and violent.
The white, glazed ceramic is intended to share a visual vocabulary with familiar objects like toilets, sinks, and bathtubs.
Device For Filling a Void (5) 2019
Devices for Filling a Void are fabricated from gold-plated electroformed copper, brass and silver; slip cast and hand-built ceramics; and glass that are molded to the body. These objects and then used to produce performance photographs.
Devices for Filling a Void literally fill the voids of the body, but also implies a psychological filling of emotional or erotic voids. The works point to ideas about women being incomplete or lacking, requiring augmentation by men, objects, dress, makeup, and adornment.
Some of the works in this series take on an association with absent bodies, like lovers or children. The objects relationship with the body projects a feeling of being simultaneously nurturing and violent.
The white, glazed ceramic is intended to share a visual vocabulary with familiar objects like toilets, sinks, and bathtubs.
This object was produced in 2015 and 2019
Avatars 2015
Avatars explores performance and objects as projections of power and desire. The video uses a vocabulary of circus or sideshow performance. It is prolonged and uncomfortable examination of the inhibited female body. The video is paired with garments, ceramic vessels, and masks forms. The work speaks notions of sexualized performance through the use of the nude or restrained female body.
The fabric suit references a hospital gown and is quilted with the pattern for the towers of Le Corbusier’s Radiant City, reflecting its utopian values of organized logic and functionality. This intellectual restraint is in conflict with the physical realties of the body.
Note: The text above was written by the Artist. No modification was made by COCA.
Lauren Kalman
United States
Lauren Kalman is a visual artist based in Detroit, whose practice is rooted in contemporary craft, sculpture, video, photography and performance. Her work investigates constructions of the ideal, the politics of craft, and the built environment through performances using her body.
She has been awarded the Françoise van den Bosch Biennial Award based in Amsterdam, Chenven Foundation, Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Puffin Foundation, and ISE Cultural Foundation grants. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mint Museum, World Art Museum in Beijing, and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris among others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Detroit Institute of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, and Korean Ceramics Foundation.