Press Release: Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History

Artworks by Tim Rollins and Kids of Survival at Tang

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. —Large-scale paintings and sculpture produced by the artist collaborative Tim Rollins and K.O.S. will be on display in a new exhibition opening Feb. 28 at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. On view through Aug. 30, Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History is the first major museum retrospective to explore the unique collaboration between Rollins, an artist, activist, and educator, and the Kids of Survival (K.O.S.), an artist collective originally made up of Rollins’s students from Intermediate School 52 in the South Bronx.

The exhibition will span more than 25 years of work produced by Rollins and his Bronx students, including pieces made in workshops conducted nationally and internationally. Together, the works comprise one of the most celebrated and controversial art projects of the past quarter century.

In combining reading with art-making, the K.O.S. group would read aloud from classic literary texts such as Moby-Dick and The Scarlet Letter while painting and drawing on the pages being read. Rollins and his students would then cut out the book pages, paste them in a grid onto canvas, and paint images that connected the stories to their own lives. As New York Times critic Janet Maslin explained, “Teaching The Red Badge of Courage, for instance, Mr. Rollins has each student make small circles that are meant to represent wounds; while the circles are assembled to form a galaxy on the grid of pages, the group extrapolates from Stephen Crane to discuss the wounding nature of urban life.”

While some have accused the group of “vandalizing” literary masterworks, others laud their distinct blend of art, education, and political commentary. The Times has praised K.O.S.’s works as “canvases for far-reaching, politically aware art.” Works by K.O.S. have been widely exhibited—including two Whitney Biennials (1985, 1991), Documenta (1987), the Venice Biennale (1988), and the Carnegie International—and are held in public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Tate Gallery London.

Born in Pittsfield, Maine, in 1955, Rollins studied fine art at the University of Maine, earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and pursued graduate studies in art education and philosophy at New York University. In 1979 he co-founded Group Material, a corps of young New York artists dedicated to creating, exhibiting, and distributing art that increased social awareness, before taking a job teaching art to special-education students. In 1984, with $8,000 in funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rollins launched the Art and Knowledge Workshop in an old factory building, where he and his students built their groundbreaking practice and distinctive name.

Public events accompanying the exhibition will include a curator’s tour of the exhibition beginning at noon on Wednesday, March 4, and a Dunkerley Dialogue starting at 7 p.m. March 19, featuring Rollins in conversation with Skidmore English professor Sarah Goodwin. From Friday through Sunday, March 20–22, the Tang will host the “Yes Symposium: The Persistence of Optimism.” The symposium will open with a screening of the documentary film Kids of Survival: The Art and Life of Tim Rollins, starting at 7 p.m. Friday March 20, followed by a discussion with Rollins and Tang curator Ian Berry. A day-long symposium on optimistic strategies in art and teaching will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, March 21, featuring Rollins, with others including artist Oliver Herring whose work is also on view at the Tang in Me Us Them. All public events, including the symposium are free and open to the public. For more information, call the museum at 518-580-8080.

Press Release