A nonprofit publisher recently announced the first monograph to document award-winning artist Kim Keever’s dazzling work. Just as exciting are plans to donate at least 500 copies to public high school students.
Kim Keever, who has been referred to as a “hydroponic Jackson Pollock,” is a former engineer who traded his career at NASA for a life of art. His artwork is held in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and dozens more. Over the course of his illustrious career, Keever has collaborated with incredible artists like harpist Joanna Newsom and director Paul Thomas Anderson.
Focusing largely on Keever’s most recent series, “Abstracts,” the upcoming monograph titled “Water Colors” includes more than 150 high-resolution reproductions of his expressionistic photographs, which capture the diffusion of liquid and the interplay between water and light. His artwork displays what at first appear to be vast, sublime landscape paintings, but are in fact photographs of paint dropped into a 200-gallon tank of water at his East Village home.
The New York-based publisher is turning to Kickstarter to raise funding for the book’s publication and to give books to students. The 200-page volume will be available as both a softcover edition and a limited-edition hardcover. Each hardcover volume, packaged in a handmade clamshell case, will be signed and numbered by the artist and will include a high-quality print. 150 limited-edition books will be released, and both the limited edition and softcover editions will be printed in Italy. The book will include a foreword by digital designer and architect Evan Douglis, a complete exhibition history of the artist, and original essays by artists Hovey Brock and David Molesky.
A major component of the team’s mission is to promote the importance of art programs in public school. To this end, the publisher has partnered with Minneapolis-based non-profit Project Success to donate at least 500 softcover copies of the monograph to public high school students.
“When I went to school we had art, and it was a joyous time in my life and most of the other kids’ — and now, as I understand it, it’s not so typical that schools still have art,” says Keever. “This project will bring art books to students who would really love to see the work, and hopefully it will encourage them in their lives.”
The Kickstarter campaign began yesterday and will run for 30 days. Campaign rewards include the 150 hardcover, limited-edition copies of the monograph at the discounted Kickstarter price of $750, and the softcover edition at the discounted price of $50.
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