Chris Kahler:VIRAL by Bruno David Gallery

CHRIS KAHLER VIRAL

CHRIS KAHLER: VIRAL October 13 - December 1, 2007 Bruno David Gallery 3721 Washington Boulevard Saint Louis, 63108 Missouri, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition Chris Kahler: Viral at Bruno david Gallery Editor: Bruno L. David Catalogue Designer: Yoko Kiyoi Design Assistants: Sage A. David and Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery or Private Collection Artwork photos by Chris kahler Cover Image: Chris Kahler: Viral A-2 (detail), 2007. Acrylic, gel mediums on canvas, 36 x 60 inches (91.44 x 152.40 cm) Copyright ÂŠ 2007 Bruno David Gallery, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery, Inc.

Contents:

Chris Kahler : VIRAL Essay by Joe Houston

Images from the exhibition Biography

Chris Kahler: VIRAL Essay by Joe Houston

Chris Kahler: VIRAL Chris Kahler’s unruly abstractions evoke the insatiable and unrepentant appetites of nature. The protean surfaces of his painting’s seem to enact the elemental processes of birth, struggle, and adaption, making each canvas an arena of natural selection, each layer of pigment a new mutation consuming the last. This pathological process finds myriad parallels in the living world, resonating on both microscopic and cosmic levels. Without any fixed context, Kahler’s Viral paintings become metonyms for any system under attack, proliferating with wider biological, technological, and cultural implications. Unlike his previous works, which over the past decade have hinged, to varying extent, upon anatomical and medical referents, Kahler’s latest series is less illustrative than demonstrative. Pustules, tendrils, tissues, and other corporeal allusions can still be ascertained, but paint is now the true protagonist. Insistent—and at times, impatient—the liquid medium appears to gestate on the picture plane, generating the seething forms, corrupting hues, and decaying structures that give substance and life to these works. The recent evolution in Kahler’s methodology is manifested emphatically by Viral A-2. Formerly exhibited under a different title, its original identity was all but obliterated by the later addition of new swarms and pools of pigment. Thus, Viral A-2 was regenerated by the very process of its own eradication and now roils in its accumulated excess. Paint is made purposeful throughout the Viral paintings. Their meaning is embedded within, and inseparable from, their viscous surfaces. Encrustations of pigment activate the space in front of the picture plane, while transparent washes of color suggest murky depths below. This spatial interplay is heightened by the overlay of matte and gloss finishes, as well as the introduction of refractive colors that animate the paintings upon approach. Viral A-9, the largest in the series to date, is thus mobilized by its material, which appears to migrate, coagulate, and calcify across

the canvas. Paint begets illusion not by description, but by its chemical and physical reality. Aesthetics are beside the point. Beauty occurs at random, a residual effect of the medium in delicate and dynamic tension. We may be tempted to identify specific sources for these paintings, but their origins are necessarily elusive. The white fissure that streams across Viral A-2 could be cellular, terrestrial, or galactic, and likely all of those things at once. Such diverse interpretations are defined by a fundamental drama, which is enacted in these paintings by the conflict between light and darkness. Throughout the series, forms populate and metastasize over backgrounds of white or tinted gesso, blotting out its reflective quality and threatening to shut off the only source of illumination. Everywhere, shapes and structures accrue to the point of oblivion. In Viral A-2, a swollen black mass appears to be scattering its seed into the jellied surroundings, which in turn envelops its dark host. All of the works, in their overloaded state, approach critical mass, verging on spectacular collapse. There are times when a painting needs to be a painting; to speak in the uncompromising tones of its specific visual and tactile language. In his latest series, Chris Kahler exploits paint for what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worth, finding meaning deep within the medium. Subsumed in that alchemical process, he achieves his own disappearing act. Despite his technical intervention, the Viral paintings seem to exist of their own volition, as though cultured in a laboratory rather than imagined in a studio. To make a painting that appears to make itself is doubly hard. With a knowing abandon, Kahler sets a chain reaction in motion, halting its growth and containing its spread at the moment of greatest danger and potential.

Joe Houston Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio 4

Works in the Exhibition

Viral A-2, 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on canvas, 36” x 60” (91.44 x 152.4 cm) 6

Viral A-2 (detail), 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on canvas, 36” x 60” (91.44 x 152.4 cm) 8

Viral A-17, 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on panel, 60” x 48” (152.4 x 121.92 cm) 10

Viral A-9, 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on canvas, 72” x 108” (182.88 x 274.32 cm) 12

Viral A-9 (detail), 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on canvas, 72” x 108” (182.88 x 274.32 cm) 14

Viral A-7, 2007 acrylic on panel, 18” x 24” (45.72 x 60.96 cm) 16

Viral A-13, 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on canvas, 48” x 48” (121.92 x 121.92 cm) 18

Viral A-13 (detail), 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on canvas, 48” x 48” (121.92 x 121.92 cm) 20

Viral A-4, 2007 acrylic and latex on canvas, 48” x 48” (121.92 x 121.92 cm) 22

Viral A-12, 2007 acrylic, latex and gel mediums on panel, 48” x 36” (121.92 x 91.44 cm) 24

Viral A-12 (detail), 2007 acrylic, latex and gel mediums on panel, 48” x 36” (121.92 x 91.44 cm) 26

Viral A-3, 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on panel, 24” x 24” (60.96 x 60.96 cm) 28

Viral A-3 (detail), 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on panel, 24” x 24” (60.96 x 60.96 cm) 30

Viral A-8, 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on panel, 24” x 36” (60.96 x 91.44 cm) 32

Viral A-5, 2007 acrylic and gel mediums on panel, 18” x 24” (45.72 x 60.96 cm) 34

CHRIS KAHLER Born 1969, Milwaukee, WI Lives and works in Charleston, IL and New York

Education BFA, Ohio Wesleyan University, 1991 MA, Eastern Illinois University, 1992 MFA, Northwestern University, 1995

Selected Solo Exhibitions 2007 Chris Kahler: VIRAL, Bruno David Gallery, St Louis, Missouri

2006 Impulsive Systems, Bruno David Gallery, St Louis, Missouri

2004 Chris Kahler: Recent Work, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St Louis, Missouri

2002 Chris Kahler: ANATOMICA, The International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago, Illinois

Selected Group Exhibitions 2007 Paper Now, I-Space Gallery, Chicago, IL Biennial 24, South Bend Museum of Art , South Bend, Indiana 37

2006 Overview, Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, Missouri

2005 Inaugural Exhibition , Bruno David Gallery, Saint Louis, Missouri Le Papier, Gescheidle Gallery, Chicago, Illinois The (In)Visible Body. NIU Gallery, Chicago, Illinois Noire, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St Louis, Missouri

2004 Abstract Painting: Six Points of View,RAC Gallery, St Louis, Missouri 1984-2004 20th Anniversary Celebration, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St Louis, Missouri Art St. Louis XX, Art St. Louis Gallery, Saint Louis, Missouri Size Matters, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St Louis, Missouri Midwestern Exhibition, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, Illinois Art St. Louis Selections , Schmidt Art Center, Belleville, Missouri 2004, Curated by Mel Watkin, Art St. Louis Gallery, St Louis, Missouri Greater Midwest, International Exhibition XIX , Art Center Gallery, Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, Missouri

2003 Systematic , Cade Center for the Fine Arts Gallery, Anne Arundel Community College, Arnold, Maryland Art St. Louis XIX , Art St. Louis Gallery, St Louis, Missouri Ready for War , University Galleries, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois Southern Illinois Artists Exhibition, Mitchell Museum, Mount Vernon, Illinois

2002 Polka- dots and Squiggly Things, Gescheidle Gallery, Chicago, Illinois Inspired in Illinois , Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois

Selected Bibliography Houston, Joe, “Chris Kahler: VIRAL”, Bruno David Gallery Publication, 2007 Beall, Dickson. “Live Virus”, West End Word , November 7-13, 2007 Bonetti, David. “Biology in Art ”, St. Louis Post Dispatch , March 29, 2006 Downen, Jill “Chris Kahler: Impulsive Systems”, Bruno David Gallery Publication, March 2006 Bonetti, David. “Chris Kahler: Impulsive Systems”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 9, 2005 ___________ “Five Galleries Not to Miss.” Where Magazine, March 2006 Cooper, Ivy. “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, Riverfront Times, November 9, 2005. Bonetti, David. “Bruno David Gallery: Inaugural Exhibition”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 20, 2005 Cooper, Ivy. “Abstract Painting: Six Points of View”, Riverfront Times, November 10-16, 2004, p. 40, St. Louis, MO. Callahan, Teresa. “Abstract Painting: Six Points of View”, West End Word, October 27-November 2, 2004, p.13. St. Louis, MO. Weir, Alex. “The Symbiosis of Pride and Biology”, Riverfront Times, October 20-26, 2004 , p.32 St. Louis, MO. Cooper, Ivy. “1984-2004 Twentieth Anniversary Celebration At Elliot Smith”, Riverfront Times , September 29October 5, 2004, p. 178. St. Louis, MO. Martelli, Rose. “Smith Elliot: The Gallery Looks In The Mirror For Its 20th.”, Riverfront Times , September 15-21, 2004, p. 32. St. Louis, MO. Cooper, Ivy. “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Art...”, Riverfront Times, July 28- August 3, 2004, p. 42. St. Louis, MO. Bonetti, David. “Everything Show”, , July 18, 2004. p. F8. St. Louis, MO. Cooper, Ivy. “Size Matters”, Riverfront Times, June 9-15, 2004, p. 39. St. Louis, MO.

ARTISTS Margaret Adams Ingo Baumgarten Dickson Beall Laura Beard Elaine Blatt Nanette Boileau Martin Brief Lisa K. Blatt Shawn Burkard Bunny Burson Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Eleanor Dubinsky Maya Escobar Corey Escoto

Beverly Fishman Damon Freed William Griffin Joan Hall Takashi Horisaki Kim Humphries Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Bill Kohn (Estate) Katharine Kuharic Leslie Laskey Sandra Marchewa Peter Marcus Kathryn Neale Moses

Patricia Olynyk Robert Pettus Daniel Raedeke Chris Rubin de la Borbolla Cherie Sampson Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Lindsey Stouffer Mario Trejo The Fancy Christ Cindy Tower Ian Weaver Brett Williams Ken Worley

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