Stanya Kahn
Encyclopedia
Stanya Kahn is a Los Angeles
based video art
ist. "Using humor as a central device, Kahn combines storytelling with visceral performances, blurring the lines between the fictional and the real to show how language is forged out of trauma." "Kahn’s characters are contemporary flaneurs, and each is steadfast on a physical or linguistic dérive that takes the viewer through narratives of mortality, trauma, family, and the ethics of civic and ecological responsibility."
She graduated with an MFA in 2003 from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
at Bard College
.
She has exhibited worldwide collaboratively with artist Harry Dodge in the last decade and has exhibited solo since 2010. Previous to and during her collaboration with Dodge, she made solo performance works and also collaborated with performers and choreographers Keith Hennessy
, CORE and Ishmael Houston Jones , touring live shows worldwide from 1992-2000. She starred in and was a contributing writer for the independent feature film By Hook or By Crook, which won numerous awards and was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival
. She is represented by Susanne Vielmetter in Los Angeles. She is represented with Dodge by Elizabeth Dee
in New York. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art
, NY, the Hammer Museum
, LA and the Goetz Collection
, Munich.
Kahn's work has shown in numerous venues nationally and internationally, including the 2008 Whitney Biennial; 2010 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Getty Center, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Sundance Film Festival; Center for Art and Media, Karlsrühe; P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art, New York; Contemporary Center for Art, Vilnius, Lithuania; MIT, Cambridge; ICA, Philadelphia; Kunstalle, Bonn, GDR; Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Hayward Gallery, London; Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles. and Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, among many others. Her solo performance works have toured nationally and internationally, and she was a founding member of the performance group/band CORE. Her writings appear in journals and anthologies including Nothing Moments, Userlands (edited by Dennis Cooper), Soft Targets Journal of Art and Theory, LTTR and Movement Research. She teaches as adjunct faculty in New Genres at UCLA, Photo/Media at Cal Arts, Visual Arts/Media and Critical Gender Studies at UCSD, and has taught in the MFA programs at USC and UCLA.
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
based video art
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
ist. "Using humor as a central device, Kahn combines storytelling with visceral performances, blurring the lines between the fictional and the real to show how language is forged out of trauma." "Kahn’s characters are contemporary flaneurs, and each is steadfast on a physical or linguistic dérive that takes the viewer through narratives of mortality, trauma, family, and the ethics of civic and ecological responsibility."
She graduated with an MFA in 2003 from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts is a graduate program associated with Bard College that grants Master of Fine Arts degrees.Founded in 1981, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts is a nontraditional school for interdisciplinary study in the visual and creative arts...
at Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
.
She has exhibited worldwide collaboratively with artist Harry Dodge in the last decade and has exhibited solo since 2010. Previous to and during her collaboration with Dodge, she made solo performance works and also collaborated with performers and choreographers Keith Hennessy
Keith Hennessy
Keith Hennessy is a San Francisco-based dancer, choreographer, and performance artist regarded as a pioneer of queer and AIDS-themed expressionist dance...
, CORE and Ishmael Houston Jones , touring live shows worldwide from 1992-2000. She starred in and was a contributing writer for the independent feature film By Hook or By Crook, which won numerous awards and was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. She is represented by Susanne Vielmetter in Los Angeles. She is represented with Dodge by Elizabeth Dee
Elizabeth Dee
Elizabeth Dee is an American gallery owner and art dealer. She owns the Elizabeth Dee Gallery on West 20th Street in New York City and she represents many popular contemporary artists, such as Josephine Meckseper and Adrian Piper. She has helped produce many of Trecartin’s movies, such as I-BE...
in New York. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, NY, the Hammer Museum
Hammer Museum
The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California...
, LA and the Goetz Collection
Goetz Collection
The Goetz Collection is a private collection of contemporary art in Munich, Germany. The collection is owned and continually being built by the former gallery dealer Ingvild Goetz, who presents the collection to the public in a series of themed exhibitions in a purpose built museum designed by the...
, Munich.
Kahn's work has shown in numerous venues nationally and internationally, including the 2008 Whitney Biennial; 2010 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Getty Center, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Sundance Film Festival; Center for Art and Media, Karlsrühe; P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art, New York; Contemporary Center for Art, Vilnius, Lithuania; MIT, Cambridge; ICA, Philadelphia; Kunstalle, Bonn, GDR; Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Hayward Gallery, London; Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles. and Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, among many others. Her solo performance works have toured nationally and internationally, and she was a founding member of the performance group/band CORE. Her writings appear in journals and anthologies including Nothing Moments, Userlands (edited by Dennis Cooper), Soft Targets Journal of Art and Theory, LTTR and Movement Research. She teaches as adjunct faculty in New Genres at UCLA, Photo/Media at Cal Arts, Visual Arts/Media and Critical Gender Studies at UCSD, and has taught in the MFA programs at USC and UCLA.
External links
- Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn Ubuweb video page
- Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn page at Elizabeth Dee
- Exhibition page at Susanne Vielmetter
- Stanya Kahn review in Artforum
- Stanya Kahn review in Los Angeles Times
- Stanya Kahn review in FlashArt