Karen Lamonte Floating World

Karen LaMonte is a world-renowned contemporary artist who has gained international recognition for her life-sized cast-glass sculptures of dresses emptied of their inhabitants. Having focused for a decade on dress styles and drapery characteristic of Western society from the dress of classical statuary to the sumptuous flow of cloth in baroque painting and sculpture LaMonte turned her attention four years ago to Japan and the clothing that most embodies that culture: the kimono. This volume illustrates her new works in bronze, ceramic, glass and rusted iron along with essays by the artist and Laura Addison, the Curator of Contemporary Art at the New Mexico Museum of Art.

Karen LaMonte is a world-renowned contemporary artist who has gained international recognition for her life-sized cast-glass sculptures of dresses emptied of their inhabitants. Her works are in the permanent collection of many institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Laura Addison is curator of contemporary art at the New Mexico Museum of Art, a position she has held since 2002. Her curatorial projects with associated publications include James Drake: Salon of a Thousand Souls; Flux: Reflections on Contemporary Glass; and The Art & Artifice of Science, with co-curator Arif Khan. Her current research interests include visual representations of the atomic age and toxicity; contemporary sculptural practices in glass and ceramics; and the cross-pollination of drawing with video, photography, performance, and installation.