Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork combines sound and objects to test the boundaries of experiential connection through multi-part installations. Gork’s installations facilitate an embodied experience that casts the viewer in the role of active participant as sculptural and sonic forms interact with each other and with us in a choreographic interplay. Using evocative materials such as human hair, felt, acoustic foam, and latex, Gork’s works often move, change shape, expand and contract while emitting sounds gathered from the surrounding environment. The specific features of a site are integral to the fabric of the work—footsteps, conversations, room acoustics, and other ambient sounds are recorded, remixed, and played on speakers as an interactive sound composition. The output is often a beguiling cacophony; a multi-layered feedback loop that continues to evolve over time.
Over the past six years, Gork has created inflatable sculptures that occupy a range of spaces from basements to gallery courtyards. These soft sculptures, like many of her works, are amorphous shapes that emit sounds and attune visitors to the specific architectural features of a site. The inflatables are kept aloft by blowers, which are an essential element of the sounds one hears while experiencing these works. Never fully inflated or deflated, but in a constant state of flux, of becoming and evolving, contracting and collapsing like breathing organisms. At the Visual Arts Center (VAC), a new inflatable in the shape of a Japanese lantern from the artist’s personal collection will fill the gallery, incorporating sounds collected from the fountain in the VAC’s courtyard. Together, the sounds of blowers, of flowing water, of visitors, and of the VAC’s interior space will transform the gallery into an interactive indoor sonic garden.
Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork is organized by MacKenzie Stevens, director, and Melissa Fandos, curatorial fellow, 2023–2024.
Major support for this project generously provided by the Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation.
The Artist-in-Residence program at the Visual Arts Center (VAC) is supported by the VAC Artist-in-Residence Endowed Fund.
Bio
Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork (b. 1982, Long Beach, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Gork earned their BFA in photography and focused on sound art, new genres, and performance from the San Francisco Art Institute (2004) and an MFA from Stanford University where they focused on the history of communication technologies, acoustics, and computer music (2011). Gork has had solo exhibitions at Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2023); Empty Gallery, Hong Kong (2017, 2021); 356 S. Mission Rd, Los Angeles (2017); Human Resources, Los Angeles (2017); Luckman Fine Arts Center at Cal State, Los Angeles (2017); The Lab, San Francisco (2016); amongst others. Their work has also been featured in group exhibitions at MAC Center Los Angeles (2022); Made in LA 2020: a version at the Hammer Museum (2021); Instrument Inventors, The Hague (2022); San Francisco Art Institute (2021); SculptureCenter, New York (2019); Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (2018); SFMoMA, San Francisco (2017); V-A-C Foundation, Moscow (2017); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) (2016, 2011); amongst others. They have received grants from the VIA Art Fund 2020, San Francisco Arts Commission (2009, 2015), the Center for Cultural Innovation (2014), and the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA (2011). They were in residence at Schloss Solitude (2018–2019), Mills College (2015), EMPAC (2014), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2011).