New York—Paula Cooper is pleased to announce the first one-person exhibition of Kelley Walker, opening on October 25 and running through December 13.

Highly conceptual and visually provocative, Kelley Walker’s work tackles some of today’s most complex debates around issues of authorship and authenticity, reproduction and circulation, and the role of the viewer.

Showing a particular interest in the changes brought about by the use of computer-generated imagery, Walker has been investigating the ways in which images can be sampled, altered, disseminated and then re-appropriated within the artistic realm. Using images directly lifted from mass-media sources (and often depicting disasters such as earthquakes or plane crashes), Walker digitally “paints” over the image, adding design elements that interact in ambiguous ways with the image.  Walker then releases his work in the public domain under the format of CDs containing an image file, explicitly giving the owner free rein to alter and disseminate or trade the image in any way he or she wishes. As Walker considers any subsequent alteration of the image to be an intrinsic part of the piece, he is not only re-appropriating his own work but also subverting the economy of the unique or limited-edition work characteristic of the art system.

Other works by Walker equally show his interest in the way a work of art functions, circulates and is imbued with meaning. Exhibited in New York in the past two years, these works have included acrylic mirrors cut out in the shape of Rorschach inkblots, sculptures made from crushed windshields, mock-cubist landscape sculptures made of cardboard, and moveable plywood walls.

For his first one-person exhibition, Walker will present new works elaborating on the ideas of image-sampling and appropriation. Using the scanner as his main expressive tool, Walker will show digital images of bricks printed on posters and covering one of the gallery walls, disk-shaped sculptures made of recycled metal and gold leaf with digital blowups of layered cardboard and a large-scale digital blowup of a drawing on fabric.  In addition, Walker will return to the disaster imagery he has been using with three different poster pieces.

Kelley Walker was born in 1969 in Columbus, Georgia, and grew up in Tennessee.  He lives and works in New York.

For more information, please contact the gallery: (212) 255-1105 or
info@paulacoopergallery.com