Micheline Klagsbrun
Transit of Venus
Gallery 81435 | August 2019
Micheline Klagsbrun’s latest body of mixed media work on paper originated in a found object: a ledger containing observations of the 1874 Transit of Venus, a phenomenon occurring every 243 years when the planet Venus moves across the face of the sun, twice. Astronomers over the centuries, dating back 5000 years ago to the Sumerians, have tracked her movements and seen her as divine. The Transit of Venus becomes an entry point into a variety of inter-related ideas, celestial and astronomical, scientific and mythological, all of which become themes in the work. The depths of ocean and cosmos are evoked by Klagsbrun's creative use of cyanotype, a 19th-century photographic printing technique that produces deep indigo shades over which she layers drawings in ink and pencil.
“In this new body of work, I continue my exploration of the tension between form and formlessness, order and chaos. The systems of order and measurement that have been applied to the cosmos are balanced against the chaos that moves below the surface of the deep”, Micheline Klagsbrun, March 2019.
Micheline Klagsbrun is a visual artist whose painting and multi-media work focuses on transformation. She studied in Paris with Alfredo Echeverria and at the Corcoran with Gene Davis and Bill Newman. She has exhibited widely, and is in private collections nationally as well as in Europe and the Middle East.
Klagsbrun was born and raised in London. A graduate of the University of Cambridge, she received a clinical doctorate in psychology (D.C.P.) from the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. Subsequently, she worked at the Center of Family Research at George Washington University.
For many years she also co-chaired the Forum for the Psychoanalytic Study of Film and edited its journal “Projections”. Her published writings have been largely in the field of film and psychoanalysis.
She is President and co-founder, with her husband Ken Grossinger, of CrossCurrents Foundation (CCF) which as part of its mission sponsors art to promote social justice and to heighten public engagement with key social issues.
In addition to CCF, she serves on several boards, including the Phillips Collection (DC), Transformer (DC), American University Arts Advisory Council (DC), the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School (NYC) and Telluride Arts (CO). Through the Corcoran Outreach program, she served for a number of years as a mentor for inner-city youth.
Her work is also carried by Studio Gallery, William Ris Gallery (NY), and Adah Rose Gallery (MD).