Guests must wear a mask when attending exhibitions at Julius Caesar.

 

Opening Friday, October 29th, from 6-10 PM. Follow us on instagram @juliuscaesarchicago to keep up to date with our hours during ever evolving​ guidelines in Chicago, or reach out to us through DMs or email to arrange visitation by appointment.

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Impending Moreness

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Kari Cholnoky @ Julius Caesar

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Julius Caesar is delighted to announces Impending Moreness, a solo exhibition of new work by Kari Cholnoky on view from October 29th to December 19th.

 

Cholnoky’s work mingles many references: the geologic record of human existence as a compacted trash layer, the onslaught of the chaotic present, the brain-dead state of the limitless scroll, the body's role as weapon and meat popsicle, and the artist’s own interest in rendering hyperobjects. Part dopamine rush, part petrification, Impending Moreness explains a state of free fall. In such a state, one's ability to distinguish one's self from the mass of physical and digital object waste becomes impossible. Cholnoky’s hyperobjects depict the chaos of our collision and mutation, presenting a glimpse of a reality shaped by compulsive piles.

 

Kari Cholnoky holds an MFA in painting from Cranbrook, and a BA from Dartmouth College. Recent solo exhibitions include Impending Moreness at Julius Caesar Gallery, Chicago, IL, and Motherboard at Real Pain, Los Angeles, CA. Recent group exhibitions include Theorem X/Y at Rachel Uffner Gallery/Mrs. Gallery, Cult of the Crimson Queen at Ceysson & Benetiere, New York, NY and Wirrwarr at Anton Kern Gallery. Cholnoky attended the Worth Advisory Bovina Artist Residency in the summer of 2019, and the Fountainhead Residency in Miami, FL in 2017. Cholnoky has been featured in Maake Magazine, Editorial Magazine, Hyperallergic, and as part of the Habitat series on ArtNews. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

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Artist Text

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I've been thinking about the term "megastructure,” which is an interesting word because it's been used both to describe real objects (the Great Wall of China, the Large Hadron Collider) and also connotes megascale engineering or astroengineering that is beyond the scope of our present capabilities (so that makes them theoretical or speculative, in other words). 

 

It's also connected to architectural concepts of the 1960's where cities were envisioned to be encased in a single building (described often in science fiction from the time as well). A given with megastructures is the concept that modifications would inevitably be made in the future and that the building would have limitless potential variation (Metabolism is another architectural movement along this line that has been interesting to me and further connects ideas of the blurred line between people and things). 

 

The process of my work follows this conceptual trajectory in that paintings are basically in a constant state of change or mutation. There can be periods of years between alterations, but the only time work is frozen in time is when it leaves the studio. It also connects to the interest I have in (the impossibility of) rendering hyperobjects, and that our notions of what "systems" or "networks" represent visually lack the complexity or messiness or viscosity of those things in reality.  

 

I have always been obsessed with the relationships between people and things, with the potential for our treatment of things to form our treatment of people, for people to become things, for things to become people. The extent to which I am invested in this involves my relationship to the work itself, as I see the work as a version of my self -- faced with being on display, the work is the way I wish I looked or could be in space, or the work looks more like my self than my own image in the mirror does. The work is a more accurate reflection of my self, and what it looks like to be a person in 2021, pulled in a thousand directions and inextricably connected to everything. 

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-Kari Cholnoky