Deborah Kass: New Release

Deborah Kass at the signing for Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner at Brand X.

The work of Deborah Kass, whose honesty, wit, and tireless scrutiny of American sensibilities has transformed the way we view contemporary art, helps us expand our narratives with empathy and inclusivity. Kass examines the way art affects and informs the construction of self, and why it’s important to foster a culture in which all people can locate themselves.

Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner, Kass' new 7-color screenprint, revisits an image from Kass’s well-known series of paintings, feel good paintings for feel bad times. Using nostalgia and devices of appropriation, Kass drew upon aesthetic themes explored in the optimism of mid-20th century artistic conventions and combined them with phrases lifted from pop culture. The resulting fusion is as relevant today as when the paintings were first shown in the early 2000s. 

"So much of my art is about who does, and who can." Kass says. "Identity is a noun. It is WHAT you are. But when you identify with something outside of yourself, it's active. It's a verb. That's how you start constructing WHO you are as a subject, a person-internally, emotionally, spiritually, politically and imagining how you can be in the world. Now people say, If you can see it you can be it.' This is the very meaning of inspiration.'"