Amerika: Tim Rollins + K.O.S. was the first West Coast showing of works by the artist and teacher Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of Survival), an evolving group of teens from the South Bronx. The collective emerged from Rollins’s job as an art teacher for “learning-disabled” junior high school students, several of whom formed K.O.S. The group’s process involved reading and discussing literature, producing automatic drawings abstractly inspired by the books, and collaging and reproducing selections of these drawings onto canvas.
Based on Franz Kafka’s novel of the same name, Amerika comprised thirteen large-scale paintings and eighty study drawings executed directly on pages from the book. The series particularly focused on the last chapter, wherein Kafka’s young, disaffected main character stumbles upon a theater troop with hundreds of “angels” playing gold trumpets. The resulting, frieze-like paintings incorporate surrealist forms resembling body parts, animals, pop culture references, and various objects, rendered in dense compositions with shiny, metallic gold paint. Amerika: Tim Rollins + K.O.S. was organized by the Dia Art Foundation, New York and included a scholarly catalogue. The participating K.O.S. students included Jose Parissi, Annette Rosado, George Garces, Nelson Savinon, Nelson Montes, Angel Abreu, and Carlos Rivera.
Amerika: Tim Rollins + K.O.S. was organized by the Dia Foundation, New York.