Frieze London

GAVLAK is proud to present A Feminist Approach to Minimalism 1970 – Today, a two-person presentation by California-based artists Karen Carson and Gisela Colón, whose sensual works embody power and intimacy. Pairing early historical works of Carson with recent sculpture by Colón, our presentation seeks to expand on the male dominated history of minimalism

Karen Carson’s (b. 1943, Corvallis, OR) 1970’s Zipper wall-works are monumental geometric configurations exploring the convergence of gender and material. Works proposed for Frieze rely on traditional women’s labor in their construction, undermining notions of gendered social rules. Viewers can fantasize pulling zippers themselves, as if participating in performative and public seduction. Carson wields a five-decade career and is included in permanent collections of LACMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Long Beach Museum of Art, amongst others.

Over the past decade, Gisela Colón (American b. 1966, raised 1967, San Juan, PR) has developed a new language of minimalism by combining her Latinx worldview with the history of California light and space to create new organic minimalist forms. Colón’s industrial light-activated wall-works possess multiple polarities taking the minimal object to a new frontier. Works rely on their organic nature to appear futuristic and primitive, while concurrently, material and immaterial. Colón has recently exhibited at Desert X AlUlav, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Taubman Museum of Art. Works reside in collections of LACMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Perez Art Museum, Miami, and Palm Springs Art Museum, amongst others.