KIM JONES

For more than thirty years Kim Jones has been working on a consistent oeuvre of drawings, sculptures, installations and performances.

Two moments in Jones’ life profoundly inform the content of his works. At a young age he was diagnosed with an illness that made him wear leg braces. During this fairly immobile period he developed a private magical world in his head and conceived his first war drawings. Also his participation as a soldier in the Vietnam War had a great influence on his oeuvre. After the war, in the mid seventies, Jones’ alter ego Mudman was born: the artist covered himself with sticks and mud and appeared in the city streets. Later on he used documentation of Mudman, as well as sculptures and installations that resulted from these performances to develop a hybrid oeuvre. His works can be seen as cultural representations of violence. Often Jones reworks certain drawings and sculptures, as if recalling a trauma or enacting a ritual remembrance. Also the frequent reuse of motifs and materials is an important aspect of his work.

The work of Kim Jones is included in the prominent public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; MoMA, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; LACMA, Los Angeles; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, amongst others.

The work of Kim Jones has featured in group exhibitions such as the Sydney Biennale; Venice Biennale; Guggenheim Museum, New York; MCA, San Diego; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; MoMA, New York; LACMA, Los Angeles; The Drawing Center, New York. His work will soon be on show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington.

Kim Jones joined the gallery in 2002.

Courtesy Zeno X Gallery