Josh Kolbo

Installation view, Société, Berlin, 2013

Josh Kolbo’s practice foregrounds the physicality of images. He collapses the distinction between photography and sculpture by troubling the boundaries between image and object, flatness and three-dimensionality, and representation and reality. His photo-sculptural installations extend the conventions of photography to fully inhabit three-dimensional space through rolling, layering, and draping photographs into unexpected configurations that build narratives across separate, yet related works. Kolbo’s more recent works address what the artist calls “the simulated image”—a displacement of photography, which applies an image as a texture to a concept. Our ability to simulate reality has come to match our ability to record it. Kolbo’s layered practice explores how this historical development introduces new forms of entanglement between the image and the social, political, and economic forces that it emerges within.

Josh Kolbo (b. 1984, Philadelphia) is a sculptor and photographer who lives and works in Brooklyn. His work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions including CONDO Project / Hosted by Project Native Informant, London; Société, Berlin; GOD / Primetime Space, New York. And in group exhibitions at pic.london, London; Künstlerhaus KM, Graz; The Mews Project Space, London; Märkischen Museum Witten, Witten; Salts, Basel; and Five Thirty Three, Los Angeles.

A Simulated Future amid Collapse

Société, Berlin 2015

Photographic retouching begins with a problem: a photograph has imperfections, technical flaws, objects or details we’d rather it not represent. Like editing a piece of writing, the post-production of a photograph is a process of subtraction, reduction, or overwriting.

Tess Edmonson

JOSH KOLBO

Société, Berlin 2011

Solo and duo exhibitions

2016

CONDO Project, with Jeanette Mundt, Project Native Informant, London
2015

A Simulated Future amid Collapse, Société, Berlin
2014

God, with Jeanette Mundt, Primetime Space, New York
2013

Josh Kolbo, Société, Berlin
2012

Josh Kolbo, Société, Berlin
Josh Kolbo & Ned Vena, with Ned Vena, Société, Berlin
2011

Josh Kolbo, Société, Berlin
Josh Kolbo, Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago
2010

Josh Kolbo, Max Hans Daniel, Berlin
Josh Kolbo, Max Hans Daniel, London

Group exhibitions

2017

pic.london, London
2015

DIDING, An Interior That Remains an Exterior?, Künstlerhaus KM, Graz
2014

Fixed Variable, Hauser & Wirth, New York
2013

Lens Drawings, Curated by Jens Hoffmann, Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris
2012

Josh Kolbo, The Mews Project Space, London
Schach Matt, Märkischen Museum Witten, Witten
Monochrome, Salts, Basel
2011

Groupshow, ICI, New York
NY: New Perspectives, Brand New Gallery, Milan
RE: Empire, Team Gallery, New York
Belief and Understanding, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York
Untiteld Document, Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago
2010

Tide Pool, Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York
Projection, Curated by Cleopatra’s at Canada, New York
All the Splendors of the Earth II, In collaboration with Ned Vena, Cave Gallery, Detroit
Big Apple, Apartment Show at Clifton Benevento, New York
Reel Worlds: A James Cameron Retrospective, PS.1, New York
Guilty Feet, Curated by Tova Carlin and Colby Bird, 179 Canal, New York
Projection, Curated by Cleopatra’s, Cave Gallery, Detroit
2009

Free Spirits, Apartment Show, New York
If the Dogs are Barking, Artists Space, New York
Apartment Show: HUGS N‘ KNISHES, NADA County Fair, New York
All the Splendors of the Earth, Center Galleries, Detroit
Mayflower, 310 Broadway, New York
Materialism, Real Fine Arts, New York
Apartment Show, Envoy Gallery, New York
Purple #’s, Organized by Arnd Seibert, Five Thirty Three, Los Angeles
Junk Shop, NADA County Fair, New York
Happy House, Apartment Show at Printed Matter, New York
Gruppenausstellung, Organized by Max Hans Daniel, Autocenter, Berlin
Projection, Curated by Cleopatra’s, Autocenter, Berlin
Projection, Curated by Cleopatra’s, ICI New York, NADA Miami
2008

Friends + Family, Anton Kern Gallery, New York
Episode 5, Untitled TV Show BCAT, New York
Episode 7, Untitled TV Show BCAT, New York

Josh Kolbo's CV for download

SOCIÉTÉ

Josh Kolbo

Solo and duo exhibitions

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010