Kiaer’s solo exhibition, ‘Melnikov Project, Cylindrical House Studio’, presented work based on the artist’s research into notions of sleep, and painting’s death, as prompted by the house of architect Konstantin Melnikov. Curated by Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, Chief Curator of the Aspen Art Museum, the exhibition brought together key installations from a developing body of Kiaer’s work which had been shown previously in international exhibitions including ‘L'Image Papillon’, MUDAM Luxembourg (2013); ‘All of This and Nothing’, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2011); ‘In the Days of the Comet’, British Art Show 7, Hayward touring exhibition (2011); and ‘Arte Essenziale’, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2011).
The research used Melnikov’s building as a proposition for an ideal synthesis of working and dwelling, which, owing to Stalinist censure, became a kind of working tomb for the architect – a meditation on redundancy and death – where he turned to the hermetic studio inquiry of minor painting, still lives and portraits. The findings of this research opened a sustained inquiry into painting’s position in relation to poiesis and praxis, production and presence. These concerns have been increasingly brought to the forefront within contemporary practice by artists such as Gedi Sibony and Paul Sietsema, whose work, together with Kiaer’s ‘Melnikov Project’, was presented in the exhibition at the Hammer Museum (2011).
An accompanying catalogue includes texts by Kiaer and by Michael Newman and Zuckerman Jacobson. Other catalogues and reviewing articles include: ‘All of This and Nothing’ (Del Monico Books Prestel, 2011, pp.74–81); ‘Arte Essenziale’ (Silvana Editoriale, 2011, pp.109–120); ‘Picpus’, (Issue No. 4, Autumn 2010, with text by Kiaer); Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith, ‘British Art Show 7’ in Frieze issue 136 (2011); and Adrian Searle, ‘British Art Show 7: Have I got spews for you’ in the Guardian (2010).