Ms. Akashi was born in 1983 and holds a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design (2006) and an MFA from the University of Southern California (2014). See attached photos, which are representative of her range of work.
Kelly Akashi: Formations is the first major exhibition and catalog of Kelly Akashi’s work, spanning 10-year time period with approximately 46 works in the exhibition.
Her first solo institutional exhibition was at the SculptureCenter, New York, in 2017 and her first solo New York gallery show was at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in February 2020. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, CC Foundation, Shanghai, M Woods, Beijing, The Perimeter and David Roberts Art Foundation in London, and the Sifang Museum, Nanjing, among others.
Curator Lauren Schell Dickens joined the San Jose Museum of Art in 2016 where she has curated several important solo exhibitions and co-organized the midcareer survey of Rina Banerjee, which was seen at the Fowler Museum in summer and fall of 2019. Prior to her senior position at San Jose Museum of art Ms. Dickens was a curatorial consultant at the National Gallery of Art and assistant curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
The exhibition catalog – the first scholarly monograph on the artist – will feature essays by Lauren Schell Dickens, Ruba Katrib, Dr. Jenni Sorkin and a conversation between Kelly Akashi and painter Julien Nguyen. The book will also feature a special photography project by Kelly Akashi, created specifically for this publication.
