Saint Louis–based multimedia artist Kahlil Robert Irving presented his first solo exhibition in New England in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, featuring works commissioned by the gallery. Working across diverse material processes, Irving examined the relationship between symbols and power, interrogating colonial legacies, monuments, and the ways race has been constructed and reinforced in American culture.
Residency Highlights
For his residency, Kahlil Robert Irving developed and presented a body of work that engaged the Zilkha Gallery as both exhibition site and commissioning partner. Several works were produced specifically for the exhibition, expanding Irving’s ongoing investigation into material culture and systems of power. Drawing on a wide range of production methods, his practice challenged traditional hierarchies of decorative arts and monument-making, using form, surface, and symbolism to expose the enduring influence of colonial histories and racialized narratives within contemporary American culture.About Kahili Robert Irving
Kahlil Robert Irving (b. 1992, San Diego) is an artist currently living and working in the USA. He attended the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Art, Washington University, in St. Louis (MFA Fellow, 2017) and the Kansas City Art Institute (BFA, Art History and Ceramics, 2015). In December 2021, Irving opened his first museum solo exhibition Projects: Kahlil Robert Irving at the Museum of Modern Art. Irving recently participated in Social Abstraction at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles and Hong Kong. He has also participated in the Singapore Biennale, Singapore; Soft Water Hard Stone, The New Museum Triennial; and Making Knowing at the Whitney Museum of Art. Works by Irving have been included in group exhibitions at the Abrons Art Center, New York; The Anderson Collection at Stanford University, San Francisco; and Mass MOCA, North Adams. He was an Artist in Residence at Art Omi in summer 2018. Also, he was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award in 2019, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2020, and the Young Artist Prize in 2023.
In 2023 and 2024, Irving’s work has been subject to several solo exhibitions including presentations at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art; and most recently, Making Knowing at the Whitney Museum of Art.
Irving’s work is in the collections of the Ken Ferguson Teaching Collection at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri; J.P Morgan Chase Art Collection, New York, New York; the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island; the Riga Porcelain Museum, Latvia; the Foundation for Contemporary Ceramic Art, Kecskemet, Hungary; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
