Caroline Kent
About the exhibition
How does language structure our world? Who gets to be inside or outside a language? What would it mean to invent a new mode of communication? And what social conditions make creating a new language necessary? Chicago artist Caroline Kent (American, b. 1975) explores these questions through paintings, drawings, sculpture, and performance works that speak in an abstract visual vocabulary she developed over years of practice.
The exhibition consists of an immersive installation titled Victoria/Veronica: Making Room, which brings together paintings, sculptures, sound, and architectural interventions. Victoria and Veronica are a fictional set of identical twins who communicate telepathically across two distinct environments: a writing room and a reading lounge. While physically distanced, the twins are united by the secret language they share. In this Chicago Works exhibition, Kent encourages visitors to engage with her invented language of abstraction—one that defies easy interpretation or translation.
Chicago Works: Caroline Kent is organized by Jadine Collingwood, Assistant Curator. It is presented in the Sternberg and Rabin galleries on the museum's third floor.
Featured images
Caroline Kent, An improbable concoction, 2020. Acrylic on unstretched canvas; 101 x 80 in.
Collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, LA.
Caroline Kent, Further and Farther Than One Expects, 2015. Acrylic on unstretched canvas; 72 x 96 in. Collection of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2016
Courtesy of the Artist; PATRON Gallery, Chicago; Casey Kaplan, New York; and Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Rik Sfera
Installation view, Victoria/Veronica: The Figment Between Us, September 13–October 24, 2020, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Chicago.
Courtesy of the Artist; PATRON Gallery, Chicago; Casey Kaplan, New York; and Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Tom Van Eynde
Installation view, Victoria/Veronica: The Figment Between Us, September 13–October 24, 2020, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Chicago.
Courtesy of the Artist; PATRON Gallery, Chicago; Casey Kaplan, New York; and Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Tom Van Eynde
Installation view, How Objects Move Through Walls, 2018, Company Projects, Minneapolis.
Courtesy of the Artist; PATRON Gallery, Chicago; Casey Kaplan, New York; and Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Leah Eldelman-BrierFunding
Generous support is provided by the Sandra and Jack Guthman Chicago Works Exhibition Fund, the Zell Family Foundation, Anne L. Kaplan, Cari and Michael Sacks, R. H. Defares, Rena and Daniel Sternberg, Charlotte Cramer Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III of the Wagner Foundation, and Anonymous.
Additional support provided by PATRON, Chicago.
This exhibition is supported by the Women Artists Initiative, a philanthropic commitment to further equity across gender lines and promote the work and ideas of women artists.
