Joel Kyack

Schmalz is juicy. Schmalz is elastic. Schmalz is sexual. Schmalz is out of tune; Schmalz is non-binary; Schmalz has no gender, no race, no religion, no political party, no football club; Schmalz has no agenda; Schmalz is bio, vegan, paleo, Atkins, lactose and gluten intolerant. Schmalz does Love/Hate exceedingly well. Schmalz makes you feel schmalzy.
A schmalzy artwork cannot be translated into words. Schmalz is an excuse. Schmalz is festive, Dionysian;
Schmalz is crusty and juicy, and this can be a physical or conceptual state.
Schmalz doesn’t need other titles. Being schmalzy defies any other sort of classification. Schmalz in non-bourgeois; Schmalz is anti - Anti-Art. Schmalz is Schmaltz. Schmalz is anti-schmalz. Schmalz is nice to you and your friends. Schmalz is a space for non-negotiable differences; a manifestation of human-grain that saves us from being tabula rasa. Schmalz is typing on your phone with fat fingers.
Schmaltz is a show built with materials that do not need affiliations and have an elastic sense of their own materiality.

Workplace Gallery is excited to present Joel Kyack’s first solo exhibition at the Mayfair gallery. Following his successful debut UK exhibition at Workplace Gateshead in the North of England, Hold On Tightly / Let Go Lightly will be the LA based artist’s first solo exhibition in London.

Beginning with one of his earliest performative works, The Dam (2006), Kyack’s practice has been the result of an aggressive refusal to resist the natural resolution of materials, forms, and ideas. With this piece, a photograph of a performance that casts Kyack waist-deep in the middle of a swollen river...

A well-known Morse code rhythm from the Second World War period derives from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the opening phrase of which was regularly played at the beginning of BBC broadcasts. The timing of the notes corresponds to the Morse for 'V'; di-di-di-dah and stood for 'V for Victory' (as well...

Workplace Gallery is proud to present a two-person exhibition of British artist Eric Bainbridge and Los Angeles based artist Joel Kyack. For this exhibition, Bainbridge will present a new body of paintings made from synthetic fur fabric, and Kyack will present a new body of sculpture and painting shown in...

Workplace Gallery is proud to present the first UK solo exhibition of Los Angeles based artist Joel Kyack. For this exhibition Kyack will present a new body of sculpture and painting shown here for the first time. Joel Kyack brings together a combination of unlikely components purchased from hardware stores,...

10 Questions w / Joel Kyack 1. If you were to be eaten, how would you like it to be? (a) chewed up (b) swallowed whole (c) from the inside out 2. As water seeks to level itself, how do you respond to its effort? (a) adapt to its...

'I moved into my present studio a year ago, one block from two large thrift stores in a primarily industrial neighborhood of Los Angeles, a thin sliver of land nestled between a river and a railroad and a highway. These stores (and the streets surrounding them) become regional way stations...

Los Angeles-based artist Joel Kyack created a country fair game trailer shaped as a giant body. Unfolding simultaneously as an installation, a performance space and a large-scale mobile sculpture, the trailer houses two games, one taking place inside the trailer’s ‘mouth’, the other in its splayed ‘ribcage’. Visitors were able...

Workplace Gallery are pleased to present Out of Sight, Out of Mind a group exhibition bringing together diverse works by eleven artists working internationally. The exhibition explores themes that draw upon notions of the Body - either directly as site, material, and subject - or indirectly as starting point for...

So this drunk walks into a bar. It's rather small in square footage but very tall in proportion. The drunk stops for a second, disoriented by the dimensions of the space, and gathers himself up. He makes his way to a stool at the bar and slides up to order...

Without particular allegiance to material, Kyack re-examines the fountain as a performative sculpture that addresses the base and inescapable chaos of the world. The five sculptures in this exhibition utilize flowing water as a literal and figurative line, portraying the body and nature as slaves to systems of fluids. Brutish...

Superclogger marks Los Angeles-based artist Joel Kyack ’s first large-scale public project. Conceived with Providence-based artist and bike mechanic Peter Fuller and developed out of Kyack’s interest in chaos, performance, and the relationship between individual will and collective control, Superclogger will present various puppet shows to drivers caught in afternoon...

THE GREATER THE GOAL THE DEEPER THE HOLE At the dusty intersection where legitimate archeology meets seat-of-the-pants prospecting, Joel Kyack explores the hidden rewards of impossible tasks. MISSION High Desert Test Sites is a non-profit organization that supports intimate and immersive experiences and exchanges between artists, critical thinkers, and...