Shay Kun

Shay Kun, (Hebrew: שי קון), born 1974, is an Israeli-American painter known for post-modern interpretation of the Hudson River School movement.[1][2]

Biography

Shay Kun was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to Hungarian parents that survived the Holocaustnts, Zeev and Heddy Kun, both artists. Kun's first solo exhibition has been in Tel Aviv at age 18. He later studied at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem (1998) and received his masters at Goldsmiths, University of London (2000). Since then, he has been living and working in New York.[3][4][5]


His works has been exhibited worldwide, including solo shows at Linda Warren projects in Chicago, Benrimon Contemporary in New York, Bill Lowe Gallery in Atlanta, Michael Schultz Gallery in Berlin, LaMontagne Gallery in Boston and at Hezi Cohen Gallery in Tel-Aviv as well as numerous group shows, including at The 51st Venice Biennale, Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum, Untitled gallery in New York, Fortes Vilaca Gallery in Sao Paolo, Leslie Smith in Amsterdam, and at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York.[6][7][8]


Kun infuses traditional Hudson River School images of nature, particularly Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt. His painstaking attention to detail and composition of fantasy landscapes on canvas are updated with contemporary mass production Pop art motifs, out of scale and perspective. Kun’s hyperreality and postmodernism style creates a jarring utopia.[9][10][11][12][13][14] In that respect, he inherited The Holocaust influence on his parents' art. His mother paintings are utopian landscapes of an ideal world, while the paintings of his father, shows a dark world falling apart.[15][16]


The New York Observer wrote: "Elements that he incorporates into his brilliantly colored, sometimes gaudy canvases including brittle, biscuit-tin landscapes of the sort mass-produced in factories in Taiwan...The show,'Exfoliations', is further proof, like Mark Ryden’s recent show at Paul Kasmin, that the huge world of kitsch has become fair game for fine art".[17]

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2006 Melting Midlands, BUIA Gallery, New York

2007 Old Flames Don't Die Out They Build New Fires, Tavi Dresdner Gallery, Tel-Aviv

2007 Perversion Is The Love We Feel When Others Feel Love. SEVENTEEN Gallery, London

2009 Opportunities multiply as they are seized. David Castillo Gallery, Miami

2010 Exfoliations, Benrimon Contemporary, New York

2010 Slack Tide, Lamontagne Gallery, Boston

2012 Domestic Sticky Wildlife, Martine Chaisson Gallery, New Orleans

2012 Be First, Be Smarter or Cheat, Benrimon Contemporary, New York

2013 An Extra, Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel-Aviv

2013 Feast and Famine. Linda Warren Gallery, Chicago

2014 Disambiguation. Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta

2014 Uproar. Michael Schultz Gallery, Berlin

2015 Nature Does Not Know Extinction Only Transformation, JBD Gallery, New York

Selected Group Exhibitions

2001 Hi Falutin’, Hi Kickin’. VTO Gallery, London

2001 Egotripping, Anthony. Wilkinson Gallery, London

2001 Cream, Rosenfeld Gallery, Tel-Aviv

2002 PoT, Joint Exhibition, Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool

2002 Artists Respond, Joint Exhibition, Somerville Museum of Art, Boston

2003 Puppy Love, Pelham Art Center, Westchester County, New York

2004 Primo, BUIA Gallery, New York

2004 Feast or Famine: Artists and Food. DNA Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

2004 Raid Projects. The Armory Show, New York

2005 Children of the Grave, The Agency Gallery, London

2005 Poles Apart / Poles Together, 51st Venice Biennale, Venice

2005 In the Ring, BUIA Gallery, New York

2006 Shifting Landscapes, Aftermodern Gallery, San Francisco

2006 Breezer, BUIA Gallery, New York

2007 …A Landscape Show, Samson Projects, Boston

2007 Subreality, Aftermodern Gallery, San Francisco

2008 In Your Face, BUIA Gallery, New York

2008 Pole Shift, Project Gentili, Berlin

2008 Somewhere To Elsewhere, Linda Warren Gallery, Chicago

2008 Artfutures, Bloomberg Space, London

2009 Animamix, The Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai

2009 Golden Record: Sounds of Earth, The Collection, Lincoln, England

2009 Three Painters, BUIA Gallery, New York

2010 The Law of the Jungle, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

2010 Interrupted Landscape, Champion Contemporary, Austin, Texas

2010 Generations, DNA Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts

2010 Fresh Apples, Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel-Aviv

2010 The Artist's Guide to the L.A. Galaxy, West Los Angeles College Art Gallery, Los Angeles

2011 Update your Reality, Alexander Ochs Galleries, Berlin

2012 Figuration Y?,Galerie Favardin & De Verneuil, Paris

2012 Good Intentions, Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel-Aviv

2013 Rothfeld Collection, American University Museum, Washington, D.C.

2013 PAN Amsterdam, Leslie Smith Gallery, Amsterdam

2013 I Love Shanghai, Art Labor Gallery, Shanghai

2013 Jew York, Untitled Gallery, New York

2013 100 Little Deaths, BravinLee programs, New York

2014 Contemporary Painting. University of Saint Francis (Indiana), Fort Wayne, Indiana

2014 Cirrus, Dorfman Projects, New York

2014 Black and White, Lamontagne Gallery, Boston

External links

References

  1. ↑ "Artists: Shay Kun". Linda Warren Projects.
  2. ↑ "Shay Kun's Jarring Earth Invaders". The Huffington Post. 6 February 2012.
  3. ↑ "Shay Kun. Socio-political pop cult". LoDown Magazine, Berlin (168). Retrieved October 2009.
  4. ↑ Tylevich, Katya (2012). "‘Holocaust Toys’". Elephant Magazine. Summer (11).
  5. ↑ "Resume". Shay Kun's official website.
  6. ↑ "I Love Shanghai". Time Out Shanghai. 20 November 2013.
  7. ↑ McQuaid, Kate (3 February 2010). "Echoing and altering the landscape". Boston Globe.
  8. ↑ "Resume". Shay Kun's official website.
  9. ↑ "Art and culture: Natural causes have surreal effects". Emaho Magazine. 13 September 2012.
  10. ↑ Tauginas, Eiseley (August 2010). "Industry Insiders: Hard working artist Shay Kun". Blackbook Magazine.
  11. ↑ Pryor, John-Paul (1 February 2007). "Shay Kun Chocolate’s Box Paintings". Dazed & confused magazine, U.K.
  12. ↑ Meredith, Etherington-Smith. "Letter from London: What’s On In the East End". ARTINFO. Retrieved 24 January 2007.
  13. ↑ "Shay Kun's Jarring Earth Invaders". The Huffington Post. 6 February 2012.
  14. ↑ Brooks, Kimberly (3 November 2008). "The Election and Art Swimming in My Head". The Huffington Post.
  15. ↑ Tylevich, Katya (2012). "Holocaust Toys". Elephant Magazine (11): 36–40.
  16. ↑ Ganihar, Tomer (6 February 2013). "Pop surrealist Shay Kun says the Holocaust is in his DNA". Haaretz Daily Newspaper.
  17. ↑ Anthony, Haden-Guest. "Back in the New York Groove, The Author Comes Home and Finds the Art World Changed". The New York Observer. Retrieved 28 September 2010.