KELLEY WALKER
7 October 2007 to 6 January 2008

Le MAGASIN is pleased to present the first major solo exhibition by the American artist Kelley Walker, featuring a major ensemble of pieces created specially for the occasion.

Kelley Walker came to attention at the start of this decade alongside Wade Guyton, Seth Price and Josh Smith, with whom he collaborates on a regular basis.

He is often linked with the latest forms of appropriation art, a field where Cady Noland and Richard Prince are dominant figures. For him, however, “The point is not to decry or observe the loss of the origin or of real experience, but to find meaningful ways of acting – as an artist – with the infinitely recycled images that constitute the sole horizon of our reality.”

(Anne Pontégnie, “Kelley Walker, The Possibility of Action,’ ex. cat.)

For Nine Disasters he compiled images of disasters on a CD Rom to be sold for $10. The protocol of activation was as follows: “The CD and the images it contains can be reproduced and played as often as its owner wishes. Whoever receives a copy of the disc or an image can also reproduce and disseminate it.” This forsaking of royalties is a powerful gesture that has implications for society as a whole, from agriculture to industry.

Kelly Walker recycles images and artistic gestures, from Warhol to Gonzalez Torres, and also forms, as in the series of mirrors that reprise the forms of the Rorschach test.

The exhibition will be presented from 4 July to 7 September 2008 at the Wiels Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels.

Accompanying the exhibition, Le Magasin will publish the first monograph catalogue of Kelley Walker with texts by Anne Pontégnie, Robert Nickas and Scott Rothkopf. 238 x 286 mm, 160 pages, colour.