Gala Porras-Kim
Gala Porras-Kim by Weston Wells. Courtesy of the artist and Weston Wells.
Gala Porras-Kim, 11 Mesoamerican Multiple Perspectives, 2019. Photo by Ruben Diaz. Courtesy of the artist; Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles; and LABOR, Mexico City.
Gala Porras-Kim delves into the conceptual underpinnings of art, often investigating how artifacts and cultural heritage come to be considered artworks. Her work has taken her deep into the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s collection of ancient Mexican ceramics, analyzing how the meaning of such objects changed upon entering the context of an art museum. She’s also researched Zapotec, an ancient Mexican language, to consider the boundaries between visual language and drawing. These inquiries, informed by a master’s degree in Latin American studies, culminate in paintings and sculpture.
In the spring, Porras-Kim made her presence known across international art spheres. In May alone, her work was acquired by the Brooklyn Museum; she showed new painting and sculpture at Frieze New York with L.A.’s Commonwealth and Council; she was included in PinchukArtCentre’s Future Generation Art Prize exhibition in Venice; and her work was featured in the Whitney Biennial, where it is currently on view. In October, Porras-Kim will have a show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Brooklyn Museum curator Eugenie Tsai noted that “at this moment, when institutions are looking carefully at the history of their collections and at cultural patrimony,” Porras-Kim’s work is “on the pulse: conceptually rigorous, formally engaging, and totally personal.”
