Gala Porras-Kim investigates institutional and linguistic frameworks that define, legitimise and preserve cultural heritage.
2023 year exhibited in Biennial Find out more
Considering how oral traditions or archaeological remains of Mesoamerica are represented and exhibited, the artist underscores history’s methodological and ideological tools to analyse and ultimately control narratives and access to knowledge. Her work questions the ethical principles of museological conservation while also functioning as an invitation to imagine stories and invest new meanings to artefacts displayed inside museum vitrines or assembled in its storages.
Her work has been exhibited at: Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2022); Gasworks, London (2022); Amant Foundation/Kadist, NY (2021); Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2021); São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2021); MOCA Los Angeles (2019); Whitney Biennial, NY (2019); Ural Industrial Biennial (2019); and the Made in LA Biennial, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016).Forthcoming solo exhibitions in 2023 include Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville, MUAC, Mexico City, Fowler Museum, Los Angeles.
She has received awards including Art Matters (2019), Artadia (2017), Joan Mitchell Foundation (2016), Creative Capital (2015) and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (2015). She was a David and Roberta Logie Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard (2019), and the artist-in-residence at The Getty Research Institute (2020-2022).
Liverpool Biennial 2023
Out of an instance of expiration comes a perennial showing (2022)
Gala Porras-Kim’s work questions the museum storage system, investigating institutional frameworks and the ethics of keeping and caring for objects. In ‘Out of an instance of expiration comes a perennial showing’ (2022 – ongoing), Porras-Kim propagates mould spores from the British Museum’s collection storage, liberating and regrowing microscopic parts of the exhibits and artefacts. The work is a living organism. The mould spores will grow and spread over the course of the exhibition, inverting traditional concerns within conservation which aim to prevent and contain growth.
Showing at Tate Liverpool
Monday to Sunday 10.00am-5:50pm
Venue
Victoria Gallery & Museum
University of Liverpool, Ashton Street, Liverpool, L69 3DRAccess facilities available
View venue
