Carole Ann Klonarides (born 1951) is an American curator, video artist, writer and art consultant that has been based in New York and Los Angeles.Electronic Arts Intermix. MICA-TV, Electronic Arts Intermix, Biography. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Montalvo Arts Center. "Carole Ann Klonarides, Lucas Artists Fellow," Participants, 2015. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Sterritt, Coleen. Coleen Sterritt, Santa Monica, CA: Griffith Moon, 2018, p. 163–8. Retrieved November 14, 2018. She has worked in curatorial positions at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (1997–2000) and Long Beach Museum of Art (1991–95), curated exhibitions and projects for PS1 and Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), Laforet Museum (Tokyo), and Video Data Bank, among others, and been a consultant at the Getty Research Institute.Snow, Shauna. "Art Notes," Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1991. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Burroughs Dena. "Best Art Curators In Los Angeles," CBS Los Angeles, October 29, 2012.Retrieved March 19, 2019. Klonarides emerged as an artist among the loosely defined Pictures Generation group circa 1980;Eklund, Douglas. The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009. her video work (often in collaboration with Michael Owen as MICA-TV) has been presented in numerous museum exhibitions, including "Video and Language: Video As Language" (LACE, Renaissance Society, 1986–7),Ianco-Starrels, Josine. "'Eight Million Stories,'" Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1986. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. "Video and Language: Video As Language," Exhibition, 1986–7. Retrieved March 17, 2019. "documenta 8,"documenta 8. Documenta 8, Kassel, Germany: Verlag und Gesamtherstellung, 1987. Retrieved March 17, 2019. "New Works for New Spaces: Into the Nineties," (Wexner Center for the Arts, inaugural exhibition, 1989), and "The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984" (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009), and at institutions such as MoMA,Metropolitan Museum of Art. Carole Klonarides, Artists. Retrieved March 17, 2019. the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum,Smithsonian Institution. "Hirshhorn Revisits the 1980s with 'Brand New: Art and Commodity in the 1980s,'" Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, January 12, 2018. Retrieved March 17, 2019. Contemporary Arts Center, the New Museum, The Kitchen, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2016).School of the Art Institute of Chicago. "Radiant Visions: Media Art from SAIC, 1965–Now," Programs, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2016. Retrieved March 17, 2019. Her work belongs to the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Getty Museum, Centre Pompidou, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Museu-Fundacão Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), and National Gallery of Canada, and is distributed by the Video Data Bank and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI).Whitney Museum of American Art. "MICA-TV, Cindy Sherman: An Interview 1980–81," Collection. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Centre Pompidou. Carole Ann Klonarides , Collection. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
Early life and career Klonarides was born in Washington, DC. In 1972, while an undergraduate at Virginia Commonwealth University, she moved to New York City and attended the year-long Whitney Independent Study Program.Huffman, Kathie Rae. "Kathy Rae Huffman in conversation about a history of video programs at the Long Beach Museum of Art," East of Borneo, June 16, 2008. Retrieved March 17, 2019. She completed her BFA in painting and printmaking (1973) while still living in New York, and started working at various galleries, including OK Harris Gallery. Klonarides began exploring video while working at the Brooklyn Museum Art School in the early 1970s; she organized a video panel, "A New Generation of Artists?" that included Lizzie Borden, Paula Cooper, Neil Jenney, and Joel Shapiro, and made her first video, Post-Show Depression, in 1975, documenting young artists Judy Rifka, Bill Jensen, Barbara Schwartz, and Porfirio DiDonna taking their first one-person shows down. She later worked late night clubs as a VJ (video jockey) and presented video programs in galleries, lofts, and as program director for the Artists' Television Network on Manhattan Cable Television.McKenna, Kristine. "Enhancing the Image of Video Art: Long Beach Museum's Carole Ann Klonarides has seen video undergo a big change, but it's largely unnoticed by the public," Los Angeles Times, July 4, 1992. Retrieved March 19, 2019. In 1980, while attending the New School for Social Research (MA, media studies, 1983), Klonarides met Michael Owen and they formed MICA-TV, a video production company focused on making videos with contemporary artists.
Curating Klonarides has worked as an art and media curator for more than four decades; she has been listed among the west's top curators by the Los Angeles Times and CBS Los Angeles.Myers, Holly. "The Armory Center for the Arts reaches for the sky," Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2009, p. 49. Retrieved March 17, 2019. In 1983, she curated the show "Borrowed Time" at Baskerville + Watson, combining works by known artists Nam June Paik, Norman Rockwell and William Wegman with those of then-emerging artists, such as Louise Lawler, Richard Prince, and Aura Rosenberg; the show led to her being hired as gallery director and organizing exhibitions of Dike Blair, Carroll Dunham, Deborah Kass, and Sherrie Levine, among others from 1983 to 1987.Fraser, Andrea. "In and Out of Place." Art in America, June 1985, p. 125. She also organized "TV: For Real" for the Laforet Museum in Tokyo (1989) and curated the video programs "It's Evening in America" (1989) on the Reagan years and "The Alternative Voice" for Video Data Bank's "Video Drive-In" in New York's Central Park (1990).Klonarides, Carole Ann. "The Alternative Voice," Video Drive-In Program Guide, New York: Central Park SummerStage, 1990.
In 1991, Klonarides moved to California to accept a position as media arts curator for the Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA), which was known for its adventurous curatorial policy. She organized the video exhibit, "The Call: Personal Insights on the Middle East and North Africa" (1992), which included works by Elia Suleiman and Jayce Salloum, Mona Hatoum, and Michel Auder; the Los Angeles Times noted the show for its post-Gulf War "reminders of the futility and agony of war, and the mindless level of political and media-created rhetoric."Curtis, Cathy. "Insights and Images: Video Exhibit Attempts to Explore Middle East Issues Without Taking Sides," Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1992. Retrieved March 17, 2019. Critic Christopher Knight described the subsequent multimedia exhibition, "Relocations and Revisions: The Japanese-American Internment Reconsidered"—with work by Margaret Honda, Rea Tajiri and Bruce and Norman Yonemoto—as "generous, provocative" and engaging.Knight, Christopher. 'Relocations' in Long Beach a Generous, Provocative Show," Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1992. Retrieved March 17, 2019. "Sugar 'n Spice" (1993, co-curated by Noriko Gamblin) featured eleven Los Angeles women artists (including Jacci Den Hartog, Hilja Keading, Jennifer Steinkamp, Diana Thater, and Pae White) and was called "subversive in a sneakily anarchic way" by critic Cathy Curtis.Curtis, Cathy. 'n' Spice': Sensory Overload in Long Beach: Women artists offer open-ended reflections on power, sex and the relationship between imagination, experience," Los Angeles Times, April 1, 1993. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Klonarides, Carole Ann. Sugar ‘n' Spice, Catalogue, Long Beach, CA: Long Beach Museum of Art, 1993. Klonarides also organized the LBMA shows, "Gary Hill: Sites Recited" (1993)—his first career survey—and "New California Video: 1994-1995."Klonarides, Carole Ann with Joe Leonardi. "Gary Hill: Sites Recited," Electronic Arts Intermix, 1994. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
From 1997 to 2000, Klonarides served as curator of programming for the Santa Monica Museum of Art. While at SMMA, she organized performance events and exhibitions for Liza Lou, Andrea Bowers, Robert Mapplethorpe,Finkel, Jori. "Mapplethorpe photos on view: Will they still shock?" Los Angeles Times, October 19, 2012. Pierre Huyghe, and Yoshitomo Nara,Pagel David. "'Lullaby': Just the Right Cup of Tea," Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2000. Retrieved March 17, 2019. among others and co-curated the influential show, "Mise en Scene: New LA Sculpture," with Bruce Hainley.Santa Monica Museum of Art. Mise en Scene: New LA Sculpture, Liz Craft, Bruce Hainley, and Carole Ann Klonarides, Santa Monica, CA: Santa Monica Museum of Art, 2000. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Knight, Christopher. "A Web of Illusion," Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2000. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Baker, Kenneth. "Just Look at the Sculpture and There Is Los Angeles," SF Gate, January 27, 2001. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Roug, Louise. "The (quirky) object's the thing for a fresh crop of sculptors," Los Angeles Times, January 2, 2005. Retrieved March 17, 2019. Independently, she curated a mid-career survey for George Stone at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (2003)Muchnic, Suzanne. "Turning an artist's dream into 'Probabilities,'" Los Angeles Times, October 31, 2003. Retrieved March 17, 2019. and organized a public installation of a Jessica Bronson's work in Old Town Pasadena (2004). In 2012, she worked with Dawn Kasper on "00:00 [RESET]," a performance series and website sponsored by LAX and the Getty Research Institute. She also curated "Che Mondo" (2013), an exhibition of contemporary photography for Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and "Alex Slade: What City Pattern?" (2013) and "Richard Prince: The Douglas Blair Turnbaugh Collection (1977–1988)" (2016), both at Edward Cella Art + Architecture. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Semiotext(e) in 2014, Klonaridis organized the re-presentation of the 1978 Cine Virus film program, originally curated by Kathryn Bigelow and Michael Oblowitz, which was accompanied by multi-day conferences at both MoMA PS1 and CalArts's REDCAT Theater.
Video work Klonarides rose to prominence in the early 1980s for collaborative video productions with Michael Owen as MICA-TV, which fused pop culture, television formulas and genres—often subverting them—and contemporary art. In earlier works (1981–6), they created video "portraits" of contemporary artists, such as Cindy Sherman,Electronic Arts Intermix. landscapes Cindy Sherman: An Interview, MICA-TV, 1980–1, Titles. Retrieved March 17, 2019. Richard Prince,Electronic Arts Intermix. Richard Prince: Editions, MICA-TV, 1982, Titles. Retrieved March 17, 2019. Laurie Simmons,Electronic Arts Intermix. Laurie Simmons: A Teaser, MICA-TV, 1982, Titles. Retrieved March 17, 2019. and John Torreano,Electronic Arts Intermix. John Torreano: Art World Wizard, MICA-TV, 1986, Titles. Retrieved March 17, 2019. that translated each subject's work into a televisual mode through specific aural and visual themes and formats, often with a sense of deadpan humor [and conceptual sophistication]. They collaborated with artists Dike Blair and Dan Graham and composer Christian Marclay on CASCADE/ Vertical Landscapes (1988), a postmodern, ironic ode to the contemporary American urban and suburban landscape.Edward Cella Art + Architecture. MICA-TV, CASCADE/Vertical Landscapes, 1988 "Vernacular Environments, Part 1," Exhibition. Retrieved March 17, 2019.Electronic Arts Intermix. CASCADE/Vertical Landscapes, MICA-TV, 1988, Titles. Retrieved March 17, 2019. The video structures a continuous flow of seamlessly edited and scored vertical movement—common to the artists' work—incorporating modern shopping malls, video arcades and pop culture products and was a co-production with the U.K.'s Channel Four for the series "Ghosts in the Machine."Getty Library Catalog. exact, Los%20Angeles%20(Calif.)--Buildings,%20structures,%20etc&sortby=rank&mode=simple CASCADE/Vertical Landscapes. Retrieved March 17, 2019.