Kim Adams (born 17 December 1951) is a Canadian

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

who is known for his assemblages combining prefabricated elements, often parts of cars or other machine-made structures. His visual style is influenced by

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...

, architecture and automotive design. His large-scale

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

s incorporate the model railroading technique of

kitbashing Kitbashing or model bashing is a practice whereby a new scale model is created by taking pieces out of kits. These pieces may be added to a custom project or to another kit. For professional modelmakers, kitbashing is popular to create concept ...

, and bright stock colours. They may be shown in a park or street as well as in a museum setting. His small surreal landscapes are toy-sized, and may be installed on shelves.Dan Adler, "Kim Adams". Artforum, March 2011.

Career

Adams was born in Edmonton and studied painting at the Northwest Institute of the Arts (1974), the Kootenay School of Art (1974-1975), and the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...

(1975-1977), where he received an MFA in 1979. At the University of Victoria, he was taught by teachers with competing aesthetics, Mowry Baden and

Roland Brener Roland Brener (February 22, 1942 – March 22, 2006) was a South African-born Canadian artist. Life Brener was born Roland Albert Brener on February 22, 1942, in Johannesburg. He studied art at Saint Martin's School of Art under Anthony Car ...

. By 1976, Adams was an abstract painter, but knew that sculpture and installation were his future. Despite his formal education, Adams found much of his inspiration outside the classroom. Adams’s sculpture work is composed of different parts: architectural structures, street events and miniature models of landscapes and architecture. His practice grew from creating miniature models in the 1980s to life-size sculptures and installations. In ''Toaster Work Wagon'' (1997), Adams assembled bicycles, lawn chairs, and parts of a 1960 Volkswagen bus. For his ''Autolamp'' (2008), he used the shell of a 1985 Dodge Ram which through holes which perforate it, gives light, transforming it into a glowing structure. The

Mendel Art Gallery The Mendel Art Gallery was a major creative cultural centre in City Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Operating from 1964 to 2015, it housed a permanent collection of more than 7,500 works of art. The gallery was managed by the city-owned Saskatoon G ...

acquired Kim Adams' sculpture ''Love Birds'' (1998-2010) in 2013 composed of 11 foot tall sculptures - made from water barrels, grain-silo caps, and parts of two Ford Econoline vans. Since the 1980s, Adams has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Australia, the United States and Europe. In 1997, Adams participated in the international exhibition ''Skulptur Projekte 97'',

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...

, Germany. His major work for that project was ''Auto Office House'', permanently installed on the flat roof of a former 1950s gas station, now the Café Gasolin. More recently, his work was shown at the 2012 ''Kim Adams: One for the Road'',

Museum London Museum London is an art and history museum located in London, Ontario, Canada. It is located near the forks of the Thames River. It started its operations in 1940 with London Public Library and amalgamated with London Regional Art Gallery and Lon ...

, London, ON, and at

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...

in an exhibition titled ''Kim Adams: Recent Works'' in 2013. His work is included in many major public collections such as the

Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...

, Art Gallery of Ontario, the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

, and the

Centraal Museum The Centraal Museum is the main museum in Utrecht, Netherlands, founded in 1838. The museum has a wide-ranging collection, mainly of works produced locally. The collection of the paintings by the Northern Mannerist Joachim Wtewael is by a lon ...

in Utrecht, Holland. His ''Brueghel-Bosch Bus'' (1997-ongoing, sculpture-installation) is permanently installed at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. In 2001, he created a permanent outdoor work for the

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Franc ...

. In 2012, Adams received the

Gershon Iskowitz Gershon Iskowitz (1919 – January 26, 1988) was a Canadian artist of Jewish background originally from Poland. Iskowitz was a Holocaust survivor of the Kielce Ghetto, who was liberated at Buchenwald. The circumstances of his early life—the ...

Prize. In 2013, he received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2014, Adams won the

Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually with the prize amount is $25,000 Created in 2000 by then Governor General Adrie ...

References

External links

Kim Adams at the Wynick/Tuck Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Kim 1951 births Canadian sculptors Living people Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners Canadian installation artists 20th-century Canadian artists 21st-century Canadian artists