Keith Edmier (b. 1967, Chicago, IL)
Keith Edmier is an American sculptor born in 1967 in Chicago. He received his B.F.A. in 1986 from the California Institute of the Arts. Edmier currently lives and works in New York.
With a background in special-effects makeup and film, Edmier went on to become influenced by neo-conceptualist and appropriation art during his time at the California Institute of the Arts. Using many different mediums, Edmier blends pop culture and autobiographical references, recreating his personal history in an uncanny way with the simultaneous nostalgia and humor of his present perspective.
Edmier has shown his work internationally at many galleries and institutions. He has had numerous solo exhibitions at Petzel Gallery (2015-2020), Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida SouthWestern State College, Fort Myers (2015), Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (2013), the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (2003), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2002), The University at Albany Art Museum, Albany (2008), CCS Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (2007), and Neugerriemschneider Gallery, Berlin (2000).
His work has been featured in group exhibitions at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2019); Kunsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands (2018); Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York (2017); Yokohama Art Museum, Yokohama (2016); the Sculpture Center, New York (2013); Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2012); Kunstwerke, Berlin (2007); Tate Modern, London (2007); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2005); Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2007); Kunsthalle Vienna (2004); Migros Museum, Zurich (2004), and the Whitney Biennial, New York (2002), among others.
Edmier’s work is in collections of such museums including the Tate Gallery, London; the Israel Museum; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York the Denver Art Museum; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among others.
He is the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2001 Biennial Award.
“Exacting craftsmanship has the chill of the mortician’s art. Period kitsch and personal recollection are inseparable. Memory is both a truth serum and embalming medium.”
Holland Cotter, “Personal History: Captured in Plastic,” The New York Times, January 11, 2008.
1967 Born, Chicago, Illinois
1986 California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA
1995 Begins showing with Petzel
2000 Solo exhibition, Neugerriemschneider Gallery, Berlin
2002 Keith Edmier and Farrah Fawcett, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (cat.)
2005 New Sculpture, Petzel
2007 Keith Edmier: 1991-2007, CCS Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
2013 Keith Edmier, Die Hallen Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum Haarlem, The Netherlands
2015 Regeneratrix, Petzel Gallery, New York (cat.)
2017 Mother Mold, Petzel Gallery, New York (cat.)