Yashua Klos: Proposal for a Monument

YASHUA KLOS PROPOSAL FOR A MONUMENT

2.12–3.21.26

In his practice, Yashua Klos explores how identity—particularly Black identity—is constructed as a means of survival, adaptation, and empowerment. Proposal for a Monument features a selection of recent large-scale woodblock print collages. In this body of work, Klos revisits imagery he first began exploring in 2015, of dimensional portrait busts intersected by grids, planes, wood, and concrete blocks. The integration of building materials and architectural elements into the collages alludes to the built environment, and specifically to the urban area of Klos’s hometown, Chicago—a city indelibly shaped by its signature street grid as well as by legacies of segregation and housing discrimination. The anonymized subjects of Klos’s collages are placed in constant negotiation with the material symbols of these unjust systems, entangled within their wreckage yet at times breaking through or reclaiming it as scaffolding to support the construction of something new.

Klos’s latest body of collages expands upon his earlier explorations of survival strategies to propose presence itself as a monument of resistance. History has shown that monuments, as both structures and symbols, are not infallible; what, Klos asks, might replace them? The exhibition’s title leaves the answer as an open-ended proposal, invoking a framework of monumentality that transcends fixed conditions or static forms. At a moment when Black and brown bodies are increasingly cast out from public space and Black figuration faces a downturn in the contemporary art landscape, Klos envisions a radical “hypervisibility” of marginalized individuals constructing images in their own likeness.

In contrast to traditional monuments that elevate their subjects and messages, Klos’s figures are often shown resting on the ground of the picture plane or suspended in space. They are not singular subjects of historical fame or glory, but amalgamations of the artist’s friends, family, and imagined faces—people who have always and never existed. The incorporation of Egyptian art and regalia, such as the braided beard of Hatshepsut Lives Over Here (2026) and the broad collar of Diagram of How to Breathe Even When it Seems You Are In Too Deep (2025), nods to the enduring presence of non-Western civilizations and suggests a continued lineage of monumental self-representation. Part human, part architecture, part detritus, Klos’s proposals embody a monumentality actively assembled and expressed by their represented subjects.

Proposal for a Monument also presents several “sidewalk” collages depicting text or imagery etched onto slabs of pavement. Klos’s representation of the sidewalk links the open, communal function of pedestrian pathways to the optically democratic structure of the grid, in which viewers can enter at any point. Similarly, any person can leave their own permanent mark on the cement sidewalk: a defiant gesture, and a record of existence against an uncertain future. In Golden Ratio (2026), a Fibonacci spiral loops over shards of cracked concrete, a modern urban echo of the ancient Nazca geoglyphs in Peru. The geometric forms adorning Who’s Streets? (2026) reference the monumental pyramids at Giza, while the titular words transcribe a popular call-andresponse slogan—heard during the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis—into a lasting reclamation of space and dignity.

Yashua Klos (born 1977, Chicago, Illinois) received his BFA from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb (2000) and his MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York (2009). Recent exhibitions featuring Klos’s work include Ancestral: Afro-Americas at the Museum of Brazilian Art FAAP (2024); the traveling survey Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary Collage, organized by and presented at the Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee (2023), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (2024), and the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (2024); and Elegies: Still Lifes in Contemporary Art at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, California (2022). The artist’s first major institutional exhibition, Yashua Klos: OUR LABOUR, curated by Tracy Adler, was presented at the Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, in 2022.

Klos’s work is included in the public collections of the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, Georgia; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York. He has been awarded residencies at the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans (2022); the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont (2014); and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, Nebraska (2012). Klos is the recipient of a 2015 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship and a 2014 Joan Mitchell Foundation grant. He lives in Queens and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Woodblock prints and colored pencil on archival paper

43 1/2 × 35 3/4 inches (110.5 × 90.8 cm)

Framed: 47 1/4 × 39 1/2 inches (120 × 100.3 cm)

Or Give Me Death, 2026

Framed: 47 1/2 × 54 3/4 inches (120.7 × 139.1 cm)

You Always Knew To Break Through, 2025

Woodblock prints and colored pencil on archival paper

46 3/4 × 35 1/8 inches (118.7 × 89.2 cm)

Framed: 50 3/4 × 38 7/8 inches (128.9 × 98.7 cm)

A Theory That We Were Once Giants, 2025

May My Next Exhale Be A Prayer of Gratitude, 2026

52 1/2 × 40 1/8 inches (133.3 × 101.9 cm)

Framed: 56 1/2 × 43 5/8 inches (143.5 × 110.8 cm)

Who’s Streets?, 2026

Woodblock prints on archival paper, acrylic, oil paint and colored pencil on wood panel

24 × 36 inches (61 × 91.4 cm)

59 5/8 × 70 3/8 inches (151.4 × 178.8 cm)

Framed: 63 5/8 × 74 3/8 inches (161.6 × 188.9 cm)

For Your Breakthrough, 2025

Framed: 40 3/4 × 49 inches (103.5 × 124.5 cm)

YASHUA KLOS

Born in Chicago, IL

Lives and works in New York

EDUCATION

2009

MFA, Hunter College, New York, NY

2002

L’Atelier Neo Medici, Monflanquin, France

Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2026

Proposal for a Monument, Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, New York, NY, February 12–March 21, 2026

2023

Building our Being, Zidoun-Bossuyt, Luxembourg, September 21–November 4, 2023

2022

OUR LABOUR, Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, NY, October 22–December 3, 2022

We Hold the Wildflowers, Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery, Luxembourg, September 22–October 29, 2022

Our Living, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME, May 28–September 11, 2022

OUR LABOUR, Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton, NY, February 12–June 12, 2022, curated by Tracy Adler

2021

How We Hold It All Together, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, CA, March 12–April 10, 2021

2016

Blank Black, Galerie Anne DeVillepoix, Paris, France, September 7–October 29, 2016

2015

As Below So Above, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, NY, September 9–October 17, 2015

2013

We Come Undone, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, NY, February 20–March 30, 2013

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025

Dans la Splendeur de la Nuit, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris, France, December 17, 2025–February 28, 2026

Juneteenth: Works from the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art Permanent Collection, Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA, June 3–28, 2025

Artistry Abounds: Selections from the Collection of Arthur Primas presented by Irving Black Arts Council, Irving Arts Center, Irving, TX, February 1–March 1, 2025

2024

Ancestral: Afro-Americas, Museum of Brazilian Art FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil, October 29, 2024–January 25, 2025, curated by Ana Beatriz Almeida and Lauren Haynes Collage Culture, Monique Meloche, Chicago, IL, June 7–July 27, 2024

Double ID, The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI, April 26–October 20, 2024

Stop & Stare, UTA Artist Space, Atlanta, GA, April 5–May 4, 2024, curated by Genevieve Gaignard

2023

Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary Collage, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, September 15–December 31, 2023; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, February 18–May 12, 2024; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, July 6–September 22, 2024

Get That Old Thing Back (GTOTB), The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, New York, NY, March 9–May 28, 2023

Unmasking Masculinity for the 21st Century – THE REMIX, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI, January 7–March 12, 2023

2022

Unmasking Masculinity for the 21st Century, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI, September 24–December 29, 2022

Dialogues Across Disciplines: Building a Teaching Collection at the Wellin Museum, Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, September 17, 2022–May 20, 2023

Elegies: Still Lifes in Contemporary Art, MoADMuseum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA, March 30–August 21, 2022, curated by Monique Long Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere: Freedom Dreams in Contemporary Art, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York at New Paltz, February 5–April 10, 2022, curated by Nico Wheadon Africa, Imagined: Reflections on Modern and Contemporary Art, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI, January 22–May 1, 2022

Shrubs, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, January 8–February 5, 2022

2021

Something To Say, Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore, MD, September 11–October 16, 2021

Alternating Currents, Fridman Gallery, New York, NY, July 14–August 20, 2021

Summertime, Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery, Luxembourg, May 29–July 24, 2021

Frida Love and Pain, High Line Nine, New York, NY, February 2–27, 2021

2020

Living in America: An Exhibition in Four Acts, International Center for Photography, New York, NY, September 30–December 19, 2020

2019

Plum Line: Charles White and the Contemporary, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, March 8–August 25, 2019

2018

Cosmic Traffic Jam, Steven Zevitas Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, July 7–September 1, 2018

2016

Black Pulp!, International Print Center New York, NY, October 12–December 19, 2016

Look up here, I’m in heaven, Gallery at BRIC House, Brooklyn, NY, June 30–August 14, 2016

2015

To Be Young, Gifted and Black, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, September 26–November 11, curated by Hank Willis Thomas

2014

In Plain Sight, The ARC, Opa-locka, FL, November 15–December 14, 2014

DRAW2014, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, February 27–March 1, 2014

2012

Fore, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, November 11, 2012–March 10, 2013

Bigger Than Shadows, Dodge Gallery, New York, NY, November 10–December 22, 2012

Singular Masses: An Examination of Racial Identity, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN, October 2012

Art on Paper 2012: The 42nd Exhibition, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC, October 21, 2012–January 13, 2013

Paperwork, Kravets/Wehby, New York, NY, May 19–June 18, 2011

COLLECTIONS

Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

Wellin Museum of Art, Clinton, NY