SEPTEMBER 16 – OCTOBER 29, 2022
KARIN BROKER: MY CIRCUS
SEPTEMBER 16 – OCTOBER 29, 2022
KARIN BROKER: my circus
Fight girl, 2021
cast metal, porcelain, scissors, pearl, buttons, wire, steel base
15 x 10 3/4 x 10 inches
steel stand: 48 1/2 x 12 x 12 inches
McClain Gallery presents Karin Broker’s seventh solo exhibition with the gallery: my circus. Broker’s sculptures range from wired figures repurposed from ceramic body parts or cast metal figures to delicate nests wired with the detritus of well-used and forgotten lives. Alongside the exhibition are a selection of Broker’s collections and oddities gathered and created over her long art career.
Since 2014, Karin Broker has been responding with ire to Western Society’s expectations levied against the female gender through her work. For my circus, she has created an army of performers whose bodies have morphed to turn their baggage into weapons or shields, so they might be ready to resist a system built to control them. Broker’s aim is to make powerful, beautiful objects that champion optimism and strength.
The accompanying artist book titled girls animates her sculptures as characters in conversation with the reader. These girls tell of their laments, struggles, and hopes that history doesn’t have to repeat itself. Through these new works and their musings found in the book, Broker weaves accounts of resilience and a drive toward defiance.
"I admit that my small voice is becoming more shrill. My hope is that my screams give strength, understanding, and resiliency to those within hearing range.”
-Excerpt from girls, Karin Broker
Girl with balls, 2021
metal/cloth mannequin, Smith & Wesson 357 Magnum, steel balls, chain, cast dog, steel base with wheels
63 x 27 x 27 inches
Broker is a maker of things as well as a draftsman, a master printer, a sculptor, and a collector of objects. If you find yourself at her studio, she’ll tell you the stories by which she became their proprietor: about the lady who sold her a hoard of antique love letters from her father to her mother in World War II, vintage pill bottles, or optometrist lenses; or the treks involved with the acquisition of this or that cloche. The raw materials for her sculpture are laden with human connection and their own historical and emotional weight.
Around the back of the gallery, you’ll find an array of objects Broker has made, gathered, and kept in her home. Some are artworks outright, like her drawing from the 1970s, wherein the artist depicts herself ready to have the bullseye spun as negative darts are thrown in her direction, her lips parted in something like fear. Also included in this room of curiosities are artworks insofar as they can’t be called anything else: two needlepoint deconstructions where Broker removed threads from found embroideries to remake the pieces into a personal search and cry for her lost sister; Seeing Through His Eyes, a perfect wall-mounted receptacle into which Broker has placed each of her husband’s used contact lenses since 1994; Thank you Barbie, a vintage doll who served as a door stop to the “Print Palace” at Rice University for 28 years. At first, this collection seems more personal than her artwork, but Broker sees little difference in saving the bits and bobs of her own days – they all tap into the quiet and quirkiness of things that one typically discards. As she puts it, “by herding these objects into different scenarios they gain humor and, in a way, a sense of lost time. They all have stories; they all have pasts. They serve as reminders that small moments are important and they add up.”
WORKS IN EXHIBITION
Karin Broker
Fight Girl, 2021
cast metal, porcelain, scissors, pearl, buttons, wire, steel base
15 x 10 3/4 x 10 inches
steel stand: 48 1/2 x 12 x 12 inches
$18,000
Karin Broker
Nesting Young Nest, 2020
sad iron, Victorian hair, crystals, wire
6 x 9 x 9 inches
painted wood pedestal: 37 1/8 x 9 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches
$10,000
Karin Broker
Virgin Nest, 2021
white hard flower, rings, crystals, wire
8 x 10 x 10 inches
painted wood pedestal: 44 1/4 x 7 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches
$10,000
Karin Broker
Girl with Balls, 2021
metal/cloth mannequin, Smith & Wesson 357 Magnum, steel balls, chain, cast dog, steel base with wheels
63 x 27 x 27 inches
$40,000
Karin Broker
Drumming Girl, 2022
cast metal, porcelain, buttons, buttons, wire
13 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches
marble pedestal: 34 1/4 x 8 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches
$12,000
Karin Broker
Model Girl, 2022
McCall Peggy, chain, ceramic dolls, thread, steel shelf
13 x 5 x 4 inches
$14,000
Karin Broker
Trouble Girl, 2022
Victorian easter basket, porcelain, composite materials, buttons, wire, steel base with wheels
23 1/2 x 18 x 20 inches
$25,000
Karin Broker
Girl Juggling Balls, 2020
porcelain, glass, metal, miscellaneous objects, wire
27 1/4 x 12 x 10 inches
Sold
Karin Broker
Little Missus, 2021
porcelain, metal, glass, watch parts, buttons, wire, steel base
26 3/4 x 13 x 17 inches
$25,000
Karin Broker
Bottle Girl, 2022
metal, bottles, porcelain, buttons, wire, steel base
30 1/2 x 15 x 15 inches
$25,000
Karin Broker
Anonymous Girl, 2022
porcelain, ceramics, buttons, wire, misc. metals, steel base
29 x 17 x 19 inches
$19,000
Karin Broker
Button it Girl, 2021
porcelain, composite materials, buttons, wire, steel base
29 1/2 x 17 x 18 inches
$25,000
Karin Broker
Always Sorry Girl, 2020
porcelain, sad iron, beads, paint, miscellaneous items, wire, steel base
28 1/2 x 15 x 14 inches
$25,000
Karin Broker
Pirouette Girl, 2022
shotgun, porcelain, steel, rhinestones, wire, metal, steel base
54 1/2 x 16 x 16 inches
$30,000
Karin Broker
Shotgun Girl, 2021
shotguns, porcelain, ceramics, glass, button, wire, steel base
39 1/2 x 21 x 18 1/2 inches
$30,000
Karin Broker
Woody, 2022
ceramic, thread in Victorian shadow box
14 1/4 x 12 3/8 x 3 3/4 inches
$15,000
Karin Broker
Snippy Girl, 2022
porcelain, scissors, buttons, wire, ribbon
13 1/4 x 5 x 5 inches
painted wood pedestal: 41 3/4 x 12 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches
$12,000
Karin Broker
Do Not Forget Me Ever Nest, 2020
Victorian hair, crystals, wire
5 x 10 x 10 inches
wood stand: 39 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches
$10,000
Karin Broker
History Girl, 2022
porcelain, wire, 1897 Victorian hair dress, antique shadow box
24 x 23 x 5 1/4 inches
$16,000
Karin Broker
Wearing the White Hat Girl, 2020
composite materials, metal, ceramics, glass, doll shoes, wire, cast metal base
30 x 12 x 10 inches
stone pedestal: 40 x 10 x 10 inches
$22,000
Karin Broker
Untitled, 2020
18th c. figure, paint, glass, ceramics, metal base, buttons, wire
29 1/2 x 13 x 12 inches
painted wood pedestal: 43 1/2 x 11 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches
$25,000
Karin Broker
Pedestal Girl, 2022
cast metal, porcelain, buttons, wire, steel base
22 x 9 1/4 x 7 inches
painted wood pedestal: 37 1/8 x 9 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches
$18,000
Karin Broker
No Please No Girl, 2022
porcelain, buttons, wire, thimbles, animal figurines, antique pistols, steel base on wheels
23 x 11 x 12 inches
$17,000
INSTALLATION IMAGES
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Pennsylvania, Karin Broker (b. 1950, Penn, Pennsylvania) received a BFA from the University of Iowa and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She studied printmaking under Stanley W. Hayter at the Atelier 17 in Paris. She was professor of printmaking and drawing at Rice University from 1980–2021. In 1994, Broker was the Texas Artist of the Year and was awarded two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. As a master printer, Broker has worked with a number of artists, including Alice Neel, Pat Steir, Garo Antreasian, and Ed Ruscha. Her artwork is in public collections nationwide including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; New York Public Library, New York, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; and many others.