“I use history as a readymade,” Deborah Kass has declared. “I use the language of painting to talk about value and meaning. How has art history constructed power and meaning? How has it reflected the culture at large? How does art and the history of art describe power?”

Most discourses around power and meaning today are—or should be—undergoing serious reconsideration. Theories of knowledge have bent to the breaking point. The combined weight of political instability, alternative facts, a growing rejection of science and the destabilizing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the growing use of state violence, have mined the confidence of people around the world but of Americans especially.

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In 1972, Andy Warhol created “Vote McGovern​,” a political screen print for the Democratic presidential candidate, George McGovern. The work seems straightforward. Depicting Richard Nixon against a repulsive, high-pitched orange field, with green and blue skin and orange eyes, as if he were a vampire, the caption reads, “Vote McGovern.” The message was clearly understood by the IRS, which repeatedly audited Warhol’s taxes, causing him to keep the very detailed financial records described by Pat Hackett in ​The Andy Warhol Diaries (Warner Books, 1989).

Deborah Kass often tweaks modernist works. “Vote Hillary”​(2016), her political screen print for Hillary Clinton, uses an uninviting portrait of Donald Trump with the caption “Vote Hillary.” Long ago, when she was my student, Kass painted a copy of Eugène Delacroix’s ​Ophelia​. More recently, in reworking paintings by famous male modernists, she offers a feminist critique of artistic creativity. Some other distinguished contemporary artists have adopted this strategy — Elaine Sturtevant and Sherrie Levine, to name two. What’s distinctive about “Vote Hillary” is its political role. Only art students know the sources of some appropriations. But like all successful political art, “Vote Hillary”​ ​has a message that​ ​is immediately accessible.

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Deborah Kass takes in the world around her and distills it meaningfully into her artwork. This process was how she found her creative voice— using the language of art history as a starting point for her own expression. Her practice has spanned more than five decades across painting, photography, sculpture—even neon light installations. But her most recognized style is often a pop cultural spin on the artistic greats who came before her—from Eugèn eDelacroix and Pablo Picasso to Jasper Johns and Jackson Pollock. In both homage and critique, Kass’ paintings rewrite their work through her lens, infusing them with Disney cartoons, female artist icons, and texts on gender and identity.

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Art Matters is an ongoing series of conversations with innovators and icons of the art world, led by Arnold Lehman, Phillips' Senior Advisor and Director Emeritus, The Brooklyn Museum.

Riding off the success of our live panel series, ART MATTERS with Arnold Lehman, Phillips is pleased to present Art Matters @ Home featuring a new conversation between our own Arnold Lehman and a leading voice from the worlds of art and culture every week through Labor Day. A new episode will be released each Tuesday and can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home or on the go.

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As part of our efforts to bring artists and ideas outside the gallery and into our community while the museums are temporarily closed, we are pleased to present the first of a series of conversations with leading contemporary artists.

In this edition, John and Jill Freidenrich Director of the Cantor Arts Center Susan Dackerman and visual artist Deborah Kass discuss her art practice leading up to the creation of OY/YO.

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Mixed media artist Deborah Kass (@debkass) shows us around her studio for our Weekend Journal #3. Kass shows us some works in progress and tells us about her inspirations for language and color, the music she’s listening to, and the political motivations driving her current work.

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Deborah Kass (born 1952) is an American artist whose work explores the intersection of pop culture, contemporary art, and the construction of self. Kass is a great lover of film, music, comics and other mass media, and a rigorous student of art history, and she considers all human creative endeavors as useful material from which to draw. Intersecting these different fields of cultural production allows for deconstructive examination of power, meaning, and value.

Says Kass, “I use history as a readymade. I use the language of painting to talk about value and meaning. How has art history constructed power and meaning? How has it reflected the culture at large? How does art and the history of art describe and reinscribe power?”

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This crisis started Nov 9 2016 and has not let up since when the FSB fixed an American election and installed Donald Trump. Every day our collective trauma and degradation continues. Everyday since his inauguration Trump has worked to destroy the rule of law by declaring himself above it. He has destroyed the administrative state by gutting every department that has kept Americans safe, firing experts with decades of experience and replacing them with cronies who have zero expertise or experience. The result is a pandemic. I still wonder when Americans will wake up the fact that Trump was installed to literally kill Americans. Maybe now? He has committed Crimes Against Humanity against men women and children who are not Americans. His treason and torture continue unabated. In fact, have now accelerated to point that made we might begin to call him what he is: the enemy. I so admire artists who can escape into their own process. I never have been that kind of artist.

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Kavi Gupta is proud to announce representation of iconic New York artist Deborah Kass.

Kass is known for her distinctive method of Pop Appropriation, which first gained prominence in the late 1980s with her Art History Paintings, a series which combined Disney imagery with snippets of paintings by contemporary artists such as Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Jasper Johns. Kass’ follow-up series, The Warhol Project, appropriated Warhol’s production methods, replacing his subjects with images of people influential to Kass, such as artists Cindy Sherman and Elizabeth Murray, Barbra Streisand in her role as Yentl, and, in the case of her Most Wanted series, art world influencers whose faces replaced those of the criminals in Warhol’s Thirteen Most Wanted Men series.

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IPPOLITA collaborates with artist Deborah Kass to create exclusive charms as a fundraising initiative with the Brooklyn Museum.

Deborah Kass is the second distinguished artist collaborating with Ippolita for the “Artist Charms” series. This exclusive collection was created in partnership with the Brooklyn Museum and features unique jewelry celebrating art and beauty, inspired by relevant contemporary art work. The line started in April 2019 with two charms inspired by Nick Cave’s Soundsuits. Now Ippolita has designed four charms to add to this series, all based on the OY/YO sculpture by Deborah Kass.

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The artist Deborah Kass, 67, whose sculpture “OY/YO” is installed outside the Brooklyn Museum, contributed a 2009 silkscreen edition, “Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner.” It will be on display at La MaMa’s Galleria, the biennial’s other venue. “I’ve been an artist in New York City my whole life, and I always wanted to be in a biennial in my hometown,” Ms. Kass said pointedly. “So why not this one?”

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Later this summer, another sculpture will stand as the permanent greeter beneath the Greek friezes and Roman columns at the Cantor museum’s historic entrance. The aluminum piece is a commissioned work by Deborah Kass, titled “OY/YO” — from the parking lot, it beckons with the word “YO” and when leaving, it reads “OY.” It stands 8 feet tall and 15 feet wide, and is painted Lamborghini yellow.

“We’re doing this because students find this facade intimidating and unapproachable,” Dackerman says. “This is a welcome.”

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In this yearlong activation, Brooklyn artists Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine, Deborah Kass, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Hank Willis Thomas present their work in our public spaces—the plaza green, steps, and promenade outside and the lobby within—emphasizing the Museum as a civic space for conversation and learning. Through their text-based works, these artists use language, questions, and humor to engage topics ranging from national debates to local community issues, sparking dialogue around some of the most pressing questions of our time and inspiring us to listen, share with one another, and connect through art.

Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine’s fence weaving, similar to those on view across the borough, sits on the promenade above the glass entrance pavilion in a direct entreaty to visitors that subtly questions neighborhood power dynamics. Deborah Kass’s vibrant yellow OY/YO sculpture seeks to evoke joy and unity in its playful monumentalizing of classic New York slang. Kameelah Janan Rasheed’s two site-specific installations use questions and prepositions to give voice to a sense of individual and collective identity in a time of upheaval. Hank Willis Thomas’s neon installation speaks out for love and compassion, despite personal pain and loss.

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OFF THE WALLis a highly visible and compelling platform on which the work of 13 significant artists can be experienced within the vibrant fabric of New York City. The title, OFF THE WALL, is inspired by two connected ideas; the artworks are physical extensions of the vibrancy within the walls of Hudson Yards, and the definition of this phrase signals what might be expected: the unusual, remarkable, and curious, that often incorporates a unique sense of humor. With the specific location of Hudson Yards in mind, all artworks relate back to the site’s past, present or future. The large scale pieces welcome interaction, and visitors who engage with the art simultaneously become their activators. By standing in an installation tableau, participating in interactive works, taking photos and sharing individual points of view, people of all ages and backgrounds organically build a Hudson Yards #OffTheWall community album.

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In the wake of the 2018 midterm elections, For Freedoms: Where Do We Go From Here? explores the role of art and visual representation in American civic life through the work of the For Freedoms collective. Founded in 2016 by Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman, For Freedoms is an artist-led platform that investigates how art and artists can help deepen public discourse and political awareness in the United States.

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“WarholxWhitney" 4 part video series discussing aspects of Andy Warhol's work produced in conjunction with the exhibition Andy Warhol A to B and Back Again.

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Hear about the life and work of collection artists Ross Bleckner and Deborah Kass in the context of LGBTQ+ history and Jewish identity in this conversation moderated by Eric Marcus, creator and host of the Making Gay History podcast. This program is held in partnership with the Stonewall 50 Consortium, which brings together cultural institutions to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement.

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PRESENTING: ART & QUEER CULTURE Lyle Ashton Harris Cary Leibowitz Deborah Kass Marlene Mccarthy

After decades in the art world, Deborah Kass has a hit. A major one. The type of beloved public artwork that you see endlessly on your social feeds, and brings a smile to your face whenever you encounter it. I’m talking about “OY/YO” (2015), the eight-foot-tall yellow sculpture that just landed at the Brooklyn Museum for an exhibition titled Something to Say.

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Finally over to Brooklyn, where a new sculpture is on hand to greet museum-goers so to speak. Deborah Kass is the artist - and her 'Oy/Yo' sculpture was installed in front of the Brooklyn Museum yesterday. The artwork reads as "oy" and "yo" on its different sides. Oy - gving a nod to the well- known yiddish expression oy vey. Along with yo reflecting both urban slang and the spanish word for "I" it's one of several works chosen to be a part of a yearlong public art activation. A museum official says the goal is to highlight the space as a place for conversations on civic issues. "It really is a work that speaks to unity, and to connectedness and really at a moment when there is so much divisiveness."

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Nothing in art is more powerful than color. From Monet and Matisse to Mark Rothko and Frank Stella, and onward to the huge Color Field canvases and pulsing neon sculptures of today, color as a means of expression is the keynote for this wildly exuberant show. Potent even to the point of being considered dangerous, it is the most exciting element of art, the strongest tool in the toolbox. “Color, above all, is a means of liberation,” Matisse declared.

The full range of color’s magic is on display in this exuberant show of over 100 works from the nineteenth century to this moment’s hottest talents. The roll call is a hit parade of art history’s most exciting names: Kandinsky, Motherwell, Warhol, Wolf Kahn, James Nares, Richard Diebenkorn, Joan Mitchell, David Hockney, and many more. It all begins with a monumental painting by Titian, considered the original champion of color in art, in a dramatic installation.

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Scenes From the Collection
The Jewish Museum, New York, NY

For the first time in 25 years, the Jewish Museum presents a major new exhibition of its unparalleled collection. Scenes from the Collection transforms the entire third floor with nearly 600 works from antiquities to contemporary art, many of which are on view for the
first time at the Museum. Art and Jewish objects are shown together, affirming universal values that are shared among people of all faiths and backgrounds.

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Debbie Millman interviews Deborah Kass
for her podcast Design Matters
November 20 2017

Debbie talks to artist Deborah Kass about her long and extraordinary career.

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OY/YO Acquired by Jewish Museum
Fall 2017

In honor of Norman Kleeblatt, Senior Curator's 40 years of excellence.

OCCUPY MANA: Artists Need To Create On The Same Scale That Society Has The Capacity To Destroy (Year 1)
Mana Contemporary, Glass Gallery
Curated by Phong Bui and Rail Curatorial Projects
OCTober 15 - DECEMBER 13 2017

A Rail Curatorial Project lead by Phong Bui of the Brooklyn Rail, this exhibition focuses on artists whose practice interrogates the contemporary social climate, including issues surrounding immigration, the environment, human rights and equality, foreign relations, among others, ultimately drawing attention to art as it functions as a lens for better understanding the time in which we live. 

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The individual component of language—text—is the prime vehicle used to express the experiences of our existence—from minor moments of daily life to the grand nature of the human condition. Our ancestors as far back as the cave man have been using symbols to document and record experiences.

Today, the visualization of our personal stories is an integral and essential part of nearly every moment of life, and we use text in all of its forms to define reality, emotions and even time itself. We are now living in a world wherein the condition of our visual communication reflects the condition of our culture. Conceived and curated by designer, podcaster, and brand strategist Debbie Millman, this exhibition is an attempt to organize, express, translate and reflect both how we live in language and how language now defines our lives.

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We titled this pop-up shop Anger Management in order to highlight our response to, and our displeasure with, so many wrongs: the immigration ban; the attacks on the EPA; the continued violence against people of color, queer, gender non-conforming individuals, and religious minorities; the intimidation tactics of white supremacists and a blossoming Neo-Nazi movement (when we lost over 400, 000 Americans fighting Nazis and fascism abroad); and the rescission of labor rights and workers’ benefits. As conscientious individuals, anger seems like an irrational response, but at this stage, it is the most rational response that a progressive body may have. May these objects made by artists and designers for the benefit of charity allow civil conversations to prevail in environments fostered by love, acceptance, and UNderstanding.

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Pride of Place showcases a selection of 20th-century paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures recently donated to NOMA by prominent New Orleans gallerist and art collector Arthur Roger.

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An American Man, Arthur G. Rosen 1996
Acquired by the Jewish Museum
May 2017

4 Black Barbras (The Jewish Jackie Series), 1992
Acquired by Brooklyn Museum
May 2017

Camouflage Self Portrait (Tutti-Frutti), 1994
Acquired by Brooklyn Museum
May 2017

Camouflage Self Portrait (Red), 1994
Acquired by LA County Museum of Art
January 2017

Cover of New York Magazine
November 14-27 2016