Perspective Series — Kim Schoenstadt

Perspective Series

Perspective #5, 2018, acrylic paint, pen, string on board and frame, with vinyl, 33.25 x 22.75 x 2 inches.

Perspective #5, 2018, acrylic paint, pen, string on board and frame, with vinyl, 33.25 x 22.75 x 2 inches.

Perspective #1, 2018, Acrylic paint, wood and string on board, with wood side piece, 24 x 30 inches.

Perspective #4, 2018, Acrylic paint, wood and string on board, with wood side piece, 30 x 16 inches.

Perspective #3, 2018, Acrylic paint, wood and string on board, with wood side piece, 20 x 30 inches.

Perspective #7, 2018, acrylic paint, pen, string on board and frame, with vinyl, 25 x 53 x 2 inches.

Exercise in Perspective #2, 2017, Three dimensional drawing, acrylic, pen and string
33.25 x 25.25 inches. — Exercise in Perspective #2, 2017, Three dimensional drawing, acrylic, pen and string 33.25 x 25.25 inches.

Exercise in Perspective #2, 2017, Detail View

Exercise in Perspective #2, 2017, Detail View

Exercise in Perspective #2, 2017, Detail View

Exercise in Perspective #2, 2017, Detail View

“Schoenstadt tackles the relationship between situational context and individual perspective in a series of new mixed media works. Continuing to explore human impulses and issues behind our built environment through her signature language of symbolic architecture and spatially engaged installation, Schoenstadt has devised a body of work addressing the tensions between context (cultural and greater sociopolitical relations) and perspective (subjective individual view). Her new works lean out from the wall to claim sculptural space with delicate suspension.

This series combine, contrast, and conflate well known buildings that reflect social unrest, including the FBI headquarters in DC and buildings from the former Soviet Union. When we talk about architecture it may not seem immediately necessary to speak of politics. But with municipal buildings, the design is more than an expression of the aesthetic zeitgeist, it is also a vehicle for promoting civic values and agendas that Schoenstadt urges citizens to question.

The exhibition features a large wall drawing, Exercises in Perspective #2, featuring municipal architecture from around the world. The work invades the gallery’s space through the use of protruding perspective lines, serving as the visual and lexicograph- ical fulcrum for the whole series. Additionally two paper based series are enlarged passages lifted directly from within the context of the wall drawing, like detailed map insets. These works explore that it is possible for humans to have many views of a single event. In one series of works Schoenstadt recast shapes from the main drawing by cutting parts out of wood and tethering them onto the page with blue line. Within these works Schoenstadt nods to the Cubist WWII “Dazzle Camouflage” creating the impression of gradually changing colors through the use of a single grey. This is a physical manifestation of her central idea.

The other series of works in the exhibition details direct linear perspectives from the main drawing and are suspended or woven with thin blue lines into a frame. On the wall behind the transparent frame lays a background amorphous shape which provides a literal context to see the work within.

Schoenstadt adroitly employs the perspectival space of architectural rendering in order to address differences in human perspective. Vantage points and sight-lines in these works are meant to lead us toward the problematic space of a subjective viewpoint... as if the multiple perspectives in Rashomon and singular perspective in Rear Window were mashed up in the work alongside her interlocking municipal structures.” - Excerpt from Chimento Contemporary Press Release