Press Release The Andy Warhol Museum Announces Photography Exhibition, Jeremy Kost: Friends With Benefits Opening December 2, 2012
Jeremy Kost, Whatever You Call Them, They're Still Tears, 2012
For immediate release
Monday, November 5, 2012
The Andy Warhol Museum announces a photography exhibition, Jeremy Kost: Friends with Benefits, opening December 2, 2012.
Jeremy Kost is a tireless chronicler of gender, sexuality, and nightlife. Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, he now lives and works in New York City, though he regularly travels the world to capture images, whether they’re of male models in the Californian desert or drag queens strutting through Pittsburgh. Strongly influenced by Warhol, both in his choice of subjects and technique, Kost extends the creative potential of one of Warhol’s favorite tools – the Polaroid camera. In Kost’s work, Polaroid images not only form the basis of silkscreen paintings but are massed together in elaborate, multilayered photo-collages.
In May 2012 The Warhol partnered with Hugo Boss to present a solo exhibition, Of an Instance, featuring Kost’s work in New York City. Friends with Benefits, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition, which opens at The Warhol on December 2, 2012, builds upon the New York exhibition by focusing on works depicting an intimate family of renowned Pittsburgh-based drag performers. The exhibition features new work produced especially for The Warhol, including a monumental photo-collage executed on the site of Andy Warhol’s grave.
Kost states, “As an artist in today’s world, it is impossible to escape the reach of Andy Warhol’s immense influence. For me personally, it lies more in his thinking, appreciation for things of beauty, and the way that we collectively perceive the world. We clearly share common subjects, both literally and generationally. Also sharing similar mediums and processes, it has always been important for me to add to the discourse of his legacy without being derivative, and I aspire to do that always.”
Nicholas Chambers, Milton Fine curator of art states, “Kost brings a unique technique and sensibility to Polaroid photography that marries its spontaneity with labor-intensive studio processes. He completely pulls apart the notion of the ‘instant’, embodied by the snap-shot, and reconstructs it as something far more complex and inherently unstable. His beguiling images point to the layered nature of identity and place.”
Jeremy Kost: Friends with Benefits opens during The Warhol’s Naughty-or-Nice Holiday Bash featuring Sharon Needles on Saturday, December 1, 2012 at 7 p.m.
EXHIBITION RELATED PUBLIC PROGRAM
Naughty-or-Nice Holiday Bash Featuring Sharon Needles
Saturday, December 1, 2012
7pm
You better watch out…You better not cry…You better not pout…
Holiday Parties. What a drag.
Join us as we ring in the holiday season with what’s sure to be the most talked about party of the season with hostess Sharon Needles, winner of this year’s season four of RuPaul’s Drag Race. The Naughty-or-Nice Holiday Bash features music by Tracksploitation.
While you are here, be sure to check out our latest special exhibition Jeremy Kost: Friends with Benefits.
The celebration includes hors d’oeuvres and two drink tickets.
Get your tickets now before the price increases or worse – they sell out!
Tickets $75 through September 30; $99 October 1 and after.
Visit www.warhol.org or call 412-237-8300.
The Warhol receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; and The Heinz Endowments. Further support is provided by the Allegheny Regional Asset District.
The Andy Warhol Museum
Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the place of Andy Warhol’s birth, The Andy Warhol Museum holds the largest collection of Warhol’s artworks and archival materials and is one of the most comprehensive single-artist museums in the world. The Warhol is one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh
Established in 1895 by Andrew Carnegie, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh is a collection of four distinctive museums: Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Science Center, and The Andy Warhol Museum. The museums reach more than 1.4 million people a year through exhibitions, educational programs, outreach activities, and special events.