http://www.kikikogelnikfoundation.org/

Kiki Kogelnik Foundation, 300 W 41st St, Miami Beach, FL (2026)

01/22/2026

Today, January 22, on the anniversary of what would have been Kiki Kogelnik’s 91st birthday, we take the opportunity to look back at the final exhibition realized during her lifetime. “Hangings” took place at the MAK — Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna from November 21, 1996 to January 19, 1997. The exhibition was organized by the institution’s director, Peter Noever, who Kogelnik had been friends with since the late 60s and who had helped her stage her “Moonhappening” event at Galerie nächst St. Stephan in 1969.

“Hangings”, curated by Verena Formanek, was an opportunity to survey a sequence of works that started in 1968, and ended with “Broadway Windows”, 1986, consisting of figures and body parts cut from brightly colored flat vinyl. Noever writes in his preface to the exhibition catalogue: "[T]his important sequence of her work has never been shown here in its entirety. I think that it is precisely this relatively closed cycle which exemplarily clarifies the aspects characterizing Kiki Kogelnik’s art: ironic subjectivity, enigmatic impertinence, and a completely independent approach towards the utilization of space, materials and symbols.”

Kogelnik, after an intensive year of exhibitions and treatment for cancer, arrived in Vienna from New York on November 16 to be at the opening of the exhibition on November 20, but was too ill to attend. She eventually succumbed to her illness on February 1, 1997 in Vienna.

Images:
1. Cover of catalogue for "Kiki Kogelnik — Hangings", MAK — Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, 1996.
2. Exhibition views of “Kiki Kogelnik — Hangings”, November 21, 1996, to January 19, 1997, MAK — Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. Photographer: Gerhard Koller. © Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved.
3. Kiki Kogelnik and Peter Noever, Bleiburg, 1981. Photographer: Mono Schwarz-Kogelnik. Archives of the Kiki Kogelnik Foundation, New York/Vienna. © Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved.

01/15/2026

Last Monday, January 12, was the centenary of the American composer’s Morton Feldman’s birth. During the 1960s, he became a close friend of Kiki Kogelnik. His silhouette formed the basis for some of her paintings, including “Robot Couple”, 1964, seen here hanging just inside the doorway to her studio at 42 West 29th Street, New York. On October 11, 1963, she attended a concert of Feldman’s and Earl Brown’s orchestral music at the Town Hall which she described in a letter to her younger brother as “beautiful”.

This stencil, with its distinctive head shape, determined by Feldman’s haircut, is held within the Kiki Kogelnik Foundation’s archive – his name clearly written on the brown paper. This form was also used to make the golden vinyl "Hanging" from 1970, whose body and limbs curl inwards. On March 18, 1964, Kogelnik wrote in her diary notes the following about Feldman: “He is intelligent and sensitive and above all socially very conscious with whom he deals. I really had to laugh when he told me yesterday that his music puts him to sleep. That is funny. He wants to change his life. Can he really do it so easily?”

In 1964, he joined others in contributing comments to the brochure that accompanied Kogelnik's first North American solo exhibition at Jerrold Morris International Gallery, Toronto. His reads: “Kiki is the love goddess of popart…..her paintings continue the legacy of a 'Marilyn Monroe'”.

1. Kiki Kogelnik, Robot Couple, 1964, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 48 x 40 ¼ in (112 x 102 cm). Here in Kogelnik's studio, 42 West 29th Street, New York, 1964.
2. Morton Feldman at Kogelnik’s studio party, December 1969. Archives of the Kiki Kogelnik Foundation, New York.
3. The New York Times review “The Music of Morton Feldman and Earl Brown Is Presented” by Theodore Strongin, October 12, 1963.
4. Stencil using Morton Feldman's outline with "Morty Feldman" written on it by Kogelnik. Archives of the Kiki Kogelnik Foundation, New York.
5. Kiki Kogelnik, Hanging, 1970, vinyl with chromed steel hanger, 55 x 15 5/8 x 5 7/8 in (140 x 40 x 15 cm).
6. Detail of brochure accompanying Kiki Kogelnik's solo exhibition at Jerrold Morris International Gallery, Toronto, 1964.

01/13/2026

As we move into 2026, it is perhaps an opportune moment to look backwards through the prism of a selection of the publications we received in 2025.

1. “Pom Pom Pidou. Shaking Up the Museum”; Tripostal, Lille, France. Publ. Éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris.
2. “Les yeux dans les yeux. Portraits de la Collection Pinault”; Couvent des Jacobins, Rennes, France. Publ. Éditions Dilecta, Paris.
3. “Pop Models: Women in European Pop Art”; Museum MORE, Gorssel, Netherlands. Publ. W Books, Zwolle.
4. “It Hurts! Violence against Women in Art and Psychoanalysis”, ed. by Elana Shapira and Daniela Finzi; with the text “It Hurts! Depiction of Violence and Defense in the Work of Kiki Kogelnik” by Lisa Ortner-Kreil. Publ. De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston.
5. “To Open Eyes: Artists’ Gaze”; Centre Pompidou Málaga, Spain. Publ. by Éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris.
6. “Les Cahiers du Musée national d’art moderne n°172”, ed. by Jean-Pierre Criqui; with the text “North ‘Kiki’ America. Kiki Kogelnik and Her Network” by Guillaume Leingre. Publ. Éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris.
7. “The Rose: A Circular Genealogy of Collage”; lumber room, Portland, USA. Publ. lumber room.
8. “Sixties Surreal”; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA. Publ. Whitney Museum of American Art.
9. “Marisol”; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark. Publ. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

therose

12/22/2025

It is with sadness that we note the passing of Arnulf Rainer (1929–2025).

Kiki Kogelnik was good friends with Rainer from the mid-1950s brought together in Vienna by the intellectually ferocious community of artists that gathered around Galerie St. Stephan, which was founded by Monsignore Otto Mauer (later Galerie nächst St. Stephan) and where Kogelnik would have her first solo exhibition in 1961.

In spring 1956, they were both included in a group exhibition at the Kärntner Landesmuseum, Klagenfurt — “Junge Talente stellen sich vor” (“Young Talents Introduce Themselves”). They were briefly engaged from July to August 1956, before Kogelnik decided to suddenly break it off. In the Foundation’s collection is one of his 'overpaintings' which he gave Kogelnik as a gift. The back is inscribed: “Der lieben Kiki zur Verlobung nachträglich geschenkt” ("To Dear Kiki on the Occasion of the Engagement Given Afterwards"), dated 1956/57.

In the interview that Rainer contributed to the catalogue of Kogelnik’s posthumous retrospective at the Belvedere in 1998, he described her as “a spot of color, a cheerful mosaic tile in the Austrian art scene”. Remaining close, he “visited her in New York and met her repeatedly”. The interview is accompanied by this photograph of the two of them together in Bleiburg, when he went to meet her parents.

Images:
1. Photograph of Arnulf Rainer and Kiki Kogelnik at Kogelnik’s family home, Bleiburg, Carinthia, 1956. Photographer unknown.
2.-3. Arnulf Rainer, Der lieben Kiki zur Verlobung nachträglich geschenkt [To Dear Kiki on the Occasion of the Engagement Given Afterwards], Oil on wood, 1956/57 (front and back of work)

.rainer.official

12/03/2025

Kiki Kogelnik’s “Tipsy Lady”, 1974, is part of Pace’s presentation at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025 to be found on Booth F9 from Wednesday, December 3, through Sunday, December 7.

“Tipsy Lady”, 1974, continues Kogelnik’s series of paintings focused on the portrayal of women, as they appeared within the pages of fashion magazines, that showed them as both empowered and absurd. It marks the further evolution of Kogelnik’s approach to painting as she moved away from the sprayed colored grounds of the earlier 1970s to more consciously painted ones; in this case the earthen finish of adobe houses which she had seen during her visits to Mexico. For the clothing she appears to sample patterns used in Vienna Secession era posters; and Maurice Guiraud-Rivière’s French Art Deco sculpture "Le Comete", 1925, might have been an inspiration for her hair. The skin is painted in greens and blues giving form to her face and hands in contrast to the paper doll flatness of the clothes. -- In a letter in 1965, Kogelnik refers to green as "the color of seduction". -- The depicted woman appears exotic yet alien, caught in a moment of revelry, as she tilts towards the seemingly waiting, highly sexualized anthuriums.

“Tipsy Lady” was first exhibited in 1977, in Kogelnik’s first commercial gallery show in New York at the Jack Gallery in Soho. She would also have solo exhibitions there in 1979 and 1981.

Kiki Kogelnik, Tipsy Lady, 1974
Oil and acrylic on canvas
183.5 x 122.3 cm (72 1/4 x 48 1/8 in.)
© 1974 Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved.

12/01/2025

The Kiki Kogelnik Foundation is delighted to announce the acquisition of Kiki Kogelnik’s “M”, 1964, by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Made two years after Kogelnik settled in New York, “M” is a painting made at the creative height of her imagining of the promise of a new futuristic world in outer space. In this painting she begins to look at the body itself, proposing physical adaption and augmentation as a means of survival, leading perhaps to the hybrid body of the cyborg, and ultimately the totally artificial construction of the robot. The “M” in the painting’s title is a coded reference to the married South American businessman, Manuel Ulloa Elías, who Kogelnik was having an affair with at the time. His silhouette is outlined in vivid orange, while Kogelnik’s form appears headless in turquoise marked with a large green 'M', her hand reaching out for intimate and sustained connection.

Kiki Kogelnik, M, 1964
Oil and acrylic on canvas
203 x 142.7 cm (79 7/8 x 56 1/8 in.)
© 1964 Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved.
Collection: Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art

11/26/2025

The Kiki Kogelnik Foundation is delighted to announce the acquisition of Kiki Kogelnik’s “Express”, 1972, by the Kunsthaus Zürich.

During the 1970s, Kogelnik’s paintings focused on the portrayal of women as they appeared within the pages of fashion magazines. She created a series of paintings that showed their subjects as both empowered and absurd as they performed their assigned roles. Stripped of the context of a photoshoot background, dressed in fiercely patterned dresses and bathing suits like paper dolls, their dynamic poses contrast with their manic fixed painted faces, and eyes that no longer appear to harbor any humanity. They echo her interest in the idea of the cyborg from the previous decade, and are in her own words: “beautiful, rich, worldly, superficial, bored, neither happy nor unhappy, no deep thoughts, no sentiment, no feelings.”

“Express” is currently on view as part of the permanent collection in the Chipperfield Building alongside paintings by Andy Warhol and Franz Gertsch that bring together American and European Pop Art.

Kiki Kogelnik, Express, 1972
Oil and acrylic on canvas
183.2 x 122.9 cm (72 1/8 x 48 3/8 in.)
© 1972 Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved.
Collection: Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland

10/21/2025

This archival photograph from 1978 shows Kiki Kogelnik in her New York studio. Behind her is her painting “Untitled (It Hurts)”, 1974, on whose surface she has taped various brown paper stencils, as if a further development of the work was planned. Works, such as “Flowers", 1978, which clearly incorporates the two face shapes temporarily affixed to this work on canvas, were shown later that year in her solo exhibition at Galerie Kornfeld, Zurich, for which this photograph was probably taken for promotional purposes.

“Untitled (It Hurts)”, 1974, is included in Pace's presentation at Art Basel Paris to be found on booth A30 at the Grand Palais from October 22-26, 2025.

Images:
1. Kiki Kogelnik in her New York studio, 1978. Photographer unknown.
2. Kiki Kogelnik, Flowers, 1978, Ink and pencil on paper, 30 x 25 ½ in. (76.2 x 64.8 cm)
3. Kiki Kogelnik, Untitled (It Hurts), 1974, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 ¼ x 53 ¾ in. (183.6 x 136.6 cm)
© 1978 Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved.

10/06/2025

It is the 60th anniversary of Kiki Kogelnik’s first solo exhibition in New York, which took place at the Austrian Institute at 11 East 52nd Street.

The opening attracted a cross-section of what she would have described as her uptown (businessmen) and downtown (artist) friends who Kogelnik greeted dressed head to toe in silver. Recognizable amongst these photographs of the event are: Claes Oldenburg, Billy Klüver, Alex Katz, Tom and Claire Wesselmann, Walasse and Natalie Ting and Henry Geldzahler.

Many of the paintings visible are now in the collections of institutions such as: MoMA; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark. “Gee Baby - I’m Sorry” is currently included in the Whitney Museum’s “Sixties Surreal” exhibition sixty years after its debut.

Exhibition date: October 5 - 22, 1965.

Images:
1. Kogelnik in front of her painting "Attitude Control" (1964).
2.-3. Crowd at the opening. Works visible, amongst others: "Liquid Injection" (1965), "Astronaut" (1964), "Fallout" (c. 1964); "M" (1964), "New Re-Entry Shape" (1965), "Night" (1964).
4. Kogelnik with the painting "Potential for Hypersonic Flight (1965).
5. Alex Katz, Claire and Tom Wesselmann.
6. Two "Bomb" sculptures and the assemblage "Miss Astronaut" (all 1965).
7. Billy Klüver and Claes Oldenburg.
8. Kogelnik, (real estate entrepreneur) Jack Klein, Alex Katz, Natalie and Walasse Ting, amongst others.
9. Crowd at the opening. Two works visible left and right in the front: "Gee Baby - I'm Sorry", "Countdown" (both 1965).
10. Kogelnik's shows.
Photographer unknown.
© Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved.

09/18/2025

Kiki Kogelnik’s painting “Gee Baby - I’m Sorry”, 1965, is included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s exhibition “Sixties Surreal”. It is a reappraisal of American art from 1958 to 1972 that looks beyond established canonical movements to focus instead on the era’s aesthetic current—an efflorescence of psychosexual, fantastical, and revolutionary tendencies, underpinned by the imprint of historical Surrealism and its broad dissemination. It recontextualizes some of the decade’s best-known figures alongside those only recently rediscovered. In the 60s, many of these artists sought new strategies for connecting art back to a lived reality that seemed increasingly unreal due to rapid postwar transformation and the social, political, and technological upheavals.

Kogelnik’s painting demonstrates her interest in the enhanced human body, suggesting mechanical augmentation, limb replacement and joint improvement in a quest to achieve a cyborgian form ready to survive in the anticipated utopia of outer space. Comprised primarily of body parts, a focus of the painting is the flesh-colored pelvic region where the reproductive system has been replaced. The title of the painting is shared with a song from 1963 sung by The Three Degrees who’s opening lines are “Gee baby, I’m sorry, But this is goodbye, You know, I really hate to leave you, ‘Cause you’re such a nice guy…”, further suggesting Kogelnik’s quest for freedom.

"Sixties Surreal" is organized by Dan Nadel, Laura Phipps, Scott Rothkopf, and Elisabeth Sussman, with Kelly Long and Rowan Diaz-Toth. The exhibition is accompanied by a substantial catalogue that chronologically maps the decade through political, social and artistic changes and developments. The exhibition is open from September 24, 2025 to January 19, 2026.

Kiki Kogelnik, Gee Baby - I'm Sorry, 1965
Oil and acrylic on canvas
50 1/8 x 39 7/8 in. (127.4 x 101.4 cm)
© 1965 Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved.

Whitney Museum of American Art

07/07/2025

Kiki Kogelnik’s “Female Robot”, 1964, is included in “To Open Eyes: Artists' Views” at the Centre Pompidou Málaga, Spain, until January 31, 2027.

In 1940, Josef Albers, a German born artist and teacher living in the United States declared that: art tells us that we must “learn to see and feel life”. For him, art was inseparable from life and encourages us to “open our eyes.” This formula applies both to his conception of pedagogy and to its artistic dimension.

“To Open Eyes” examines the ways in which artists invite us to decenter our gaze and thus transform our relationship with art, society, and the world. The exhibition, neither chronological nor narrative, is structured around visual, formal, or thematic rhymes. It reveals affinities between works from a wide variety of media, periods, and creative contexts, reflecting the richness and diversity of the Pompidou’s collections.

The exhibition is a free journey that offers an open and comprehensive overview of the major movements and ruptures that have marked the history of art in the 20th and 21st centuries, leading to recent creations that signal some of today’s challenges. The works offer reflections on our relationship with history and spirituality, the place of the body in art and society, and the way utopias shape our imaginations.

Kiki Kogelnik, Female Robot, 1964
Oil and acrylic on canvas
48 1/4 x 72 1/8 ins. (122.6 x 183.4cm)
© 1964 Kiki Kogelnik Foundation. All rights reserved.
Collection Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris

07/01/2025

On this day, sixty years ago, an exhibition dedicated to “1¢ Life”, a 1964 publication created by the Chinese-American artist and poet Walasse Ting and the Abstract Expressionist painter Sam Francis, opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Its pages brought together a community of artists and offered a snapshot of the current scene through specially created artwork traversing the movements of European and American Abstraction, Cobra and Pop, interspersed with Ting’s poetry.

Published by E. W. Kornfeld, Bern, Switzerland in an edition of 2000 copies, and in a numbered portfolio edition of 100 signed copies it is dedicated to the Detroit collector Florence Barron. The 172 page cased portfolio included 62 original lithographs made by 28 artists: Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Enrico Baj, Alan Davie, Jim Dine, Öyvind Fahlström, Sam Francis, Robert Indiana, Alfred Jensen, Asgar Jorn, Allan Kaprow, Alfred Leslie, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Mitchell, Kiki Kogelnik, Claes Oldenburg, Mel Ramos, Robert Rauschenberg, Reinhoud, Jean-Paul Riopelle, James Rosenquist, Antonio Saura, Kimber Smith, K.R.H. Sonderberg, Walasse Ting, Bram van Velde, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann.

Kogelnik, who was identified as ‘KIKI O.K.’ in the list of contents, is one of only two women included – the second was Joan Mitchell. She made her contribution “Noir Orange Heart” while visiting Paris in 1963. She wrote to her mother on May 7: “I’m doing a litho here for Ting’s book,” - and two years later to the artist Alfons Schilling: “Well, I might go with the Tings to Philadelphia this weekend — where there is a show of the 1 Cent Life.”

https://www.instagram.com/walasse_ting_estate/

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