Sheila Klein
Curator. Consolidated Works, Seattle. May - June 2000
Nominated as "Best Exhibition Outside of New York in an Alternative Venue, 2000" by the International Association of Art Critics (USA).
Sheila Klein’s installation transforms the gallery’s vast, industrial space into an immersive environment that explores scale, materiality, and the body’s relationship to architecture. This solo exhibition of new works fills the large Consolidated Works gallery with giant pant-leg structures, glowing nylon hammocks, a ruffled silver mousehole, and space-age sleeping bags, each articulated as a physical drawing in three-dimensional form. Klein’s meticulous use of tactile, gendered materials—nylon, textiles, and repurposed athletic fabrics—creates a dialogue between the familiar and the uncanny, while her manipulation of space emphasizes movement, gesture, and spatial negotiation. The installation challenges conventional hierarchies of sculpture, drawing, and design, foregrounding process, repetition, and the performative potential of objects within an environment.
This exhibition represents the continuation of Klein’s exploration of constructed environments, in which architecture, furniture, and sculptural forms operate as extensions of the body and social imagination. Her prior projects, including Underground Girl in a Los Angeles metro station, reveal a sustained interest in activating public and institutional spaces through material and formal interventions. At Consolidated Works, the gallery becomes a site for spatial and bodily engagement, where the viewer negotiates scale, tactility, and unexpected combinations of forms. Klein’s work positions itself at the intersection of installation, sculpture, and performative space, demonstrating an ongoing commitment to investigating how objects, materials, and architecture mediate experience and perception.
Selected Press
Sculpture Magazine, January - February 2001
About Shiela Klein
Sheila Klein is a visual artist whose work bridges art and architecture, transforming everyday objects into sculptural forms that challenge conventional perceptions. Over a career spanning more than 40 years, she has consistently explored new ways to use both traditional and unconventional materials to address timeless concepts, mixing archetypal imagery with innovative interventions to counter the homogenization of contemporary environments. Klein has exhibited widely, including at P.S.1, the Institute for Art and Urban Studies in New York, Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museum of Art and Design, New York, La Foret Museum in Tokyo, and Memory and Lands of the 20th Century in Florence, Italy. Her work has been covered in both art journals and mainstream outlets, including The New York Times, Times of India, and National Public Radio.
Klein’s practice extends to public and civic projects, beginning in 1977 with multiple commissions that blend sculptural and architectural strategies. Notable projects include the LAX air traffic control tower, the Underground Girl subway station in Hollywood, a light structure in the Santa Monica underpass on Pico Boulevard, and Leopard Sky at Houston’s Intercontinental Airport. Early in her career, she practiced architecture with the award-winning firm group A2Z. Across media and scale, Klein consistently pursues her guiding vision: “I want to dress the world. Re-make it, as I want to see it, one piece at a time. The world is my studio. I perform with materials.”