Larry and Debby Kline artists and provocateurs – installation, performances, and other works

Projects and Works
The Kline’s work gets crushed by a steamroller at ENVZN23 Urban Arts Takeover
The Kline's work gets crushed by a steamroller at ENVZN23 Urban Arts Takeover

Much thanks to all the folks at Mesa College art gallery for printing our woodblock, United States Hostage, at ENVZN23 Urban Art Takeover. Their crew “crushed it” on the streets of Logan Heights for about 12 hours. We sooooooo wanted to drive the steamroller!!!

The Malashock Dance troupe performing with the Alchemist at ENVZN23 Urban Arts Takeover.
The Malashock Dance troupe performing with the Alchemist at ENVZN23 Urban Arts Takeover.

We were thrilled to be part of this visual and performing arts festival that transformed warehouses, industrial spaces, and other urban areas of the Commercial Street corridor in Logan Heights. Two full city blocks were activated with multi-sensory art interventions by creatives from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border. Here is the Malashock Dance troupe tearing it up at ENVZN23 Urban Arts Takeover. The Alchemist is pleased.

The Alchemist in His Elements
The Alchemist in His Elements

The Alchemist is the original “maker”, an icon for a world that demands cheap, readily available material goods, without concern for the byproducts of manufacturing. But our relationship with industry is a complicated one. At its core, the Alchemist also represents our need to design, build and change our environment through understanding the principles that guide our world.

Project Extinction: J.J. Audubon’s Birds of America
Project Extinction: J.J. Audubon's Birds of America

Project Extinction is a series of drawings updating John Audubon‘s Birds of America. We are documenting the species that have since gone extinct since it’s publication, a continuation of a project that we started when we were artists in residence at the San Diego Museum of Natural History.

Joyce Cutler-Shaw Artists in Residence at UCSD School of Medicine
Joyce Cutler-Shaw Artists in Residence at UCSD School of Medicine

As the Joyce Cutler-Shaw Artists in Residence at UCSD School of Medicine, we are honored to have the opportunity to create artworks for display. We recently created/and or installed two large sculptures and one large drawing in the Biomedical Sciences building, each about 8 feet in height or length.

Medical Illustrations
Medical Illustrations

We have recently begun creating anatomical drawings. This is a new process for us, but we are working with anatomists to create approximately 100 drawings. It is an incredibly challenging and exciting process.

Three Phases of the Moon: A Cautionary Tale
Three Phases of the Moon: A Cautionary Tale

In the final panel, The Dark Side of the Moon, the Earth has become a defunct rock in the sky and rabbits, the victims of testing, have escaped and repopulated the moon, doomed to repeat the same mistakes as their human counterparts.

Seeking Truth
Seeking Truth

In SEEKING TRUTH, we present an architectural environment with visual and audible cues intended to make viewers feel unsettled or confused. A cacophony of sounds confronts viewers as they traverse the space. These sounds are derived from Cacophony and Utterances, a participatory piece that we created in memory of David Antin, performed at the Getty Center theater.

Zacky the Cat Fights Fascism in 2020 election
Zacky the Cat Fights Fascism in 2020 election

We have created a short video to encourage voting in this crucial US Presidential election. To save our Democracy, we must all do our best to counteract voter suppression and Fascism. If our cat can do it, so can you!

Weeks 1-6: Self-Confinement Residency with Building Bridges Los Angeles, September 2020.
Weeks 1-6: Self-Confinement Residency with Building Bridges Los Angeles, September 2020.

Weeks 1-6 of my self-confinement residency which will culminate in a performance and exhibition at Building Bridges Art Exchange Los Angeles. I am building Patrolling the Perimeters, featuring sugar tanks riding robotic vacuums which clean up their own messes as they collide.

Heritagefuture.org Podcast: Veronica Murphy / Larry and Debby Kline, August 2020.
Heritagefuture.org Podcast: Veronica Murphy / Larry and Debby Kline, August 2020.

We are honored to be interviewed by Heritagefuture.org for our work illustrating stories for Write Out Loud’s Kamishibai presentations. The latest project was told from the viewpoint of a Japanese-American child, who endured loss and displacement as his family was forced into Japanese internment camps during WWII.

Larry Kline discusses his work with Debby Kline in a virtual lecture at Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles, August 2020.
Larry Kline discusses his work with Debby Kline in a virtual lecture at Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles, August 2020.

Larry Kline discusses his work with Debby Kline in a virtual chat at Building Bridges Art Exchange, Los Angeles. This conversation is part of the “Self-Confinement Residency,” developed by arts organizations in Spain, Columbia, Costa Rica and the United States to address the challenges facing artists who continue to create in the face of covid-19.

Tiny Revolutions
Tiny Revolutions

We have decided to create an “act of defiance” each day in the form of Tiny Revolutions, very small hand-drawn graphite images ranging in size from ½” x ½” to 2 ½” x 2 ½.” Their size is dictated by the possibility that a day may come when Americans cannot freely voice dissent.

Igloo Inversions for the Salton Sea
Igloo Inversions for the Salton Sea

We were recently awarded the Calzona Prize in a ceremony at UCSD. The award includes the deed to a plot of land in the desert on the border of California and Arizona, which we will use to create art and turn the land into a way-station for travelers. The artwork will be a series of earthworks that relate to the formation of the Salton Sea. This project should take about a year to complete and will be a sister piece to Earth Igloo for Jerusalem, a piece we created for an exhibition at Museum on the Seam.

Mining a Museum: Finding Hierarchies
Mining a Museum: Finding Hierarchies

We are riffing on the scientific work of Saket Navlakha (Assistant Professor, Integrative Biology Laboratory at Salk Institute) who uses algorithms to study similarities between biological and engineered networks. One of his areas of study addresses the ambulation of bacteria as well as traffic patterns formed by humans as they travel. Inspired by this work, we decided to create our own experiment by tracking museum visitors as they confront different art genres (eg. Painting, sculpture or digital works) within this exhibition.

The Alchemist and His Junks
The Alchemist and His Junks

The Alchemist and His Junks is a large-scale installation devoted to the living cycle of trash. The main character is both ancient and modern. His garb is based on Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) jade burial suits. Through a contemporary translation, he has become a sleek superhero, emblematic of industry.

Prayer Rug: Be Not Afraid
Prayer Rug: Be Not Afraid

We often begin at opposite sides of the paper, eventually crawling all over each other to see what the other has produced in order to create a response to it. This drawing depicts every sort of natural and man-made disaster that can befall our planet. As the earth splits apart, the viewer can be calmed by deciphering the secret message of hope, delivered in binary code near the bottom center of the image.

“Project Yourself (personal projection device)”
"Project Yourself (personal projection device)"

Appearing a bit like a large 1950’s ray gun, this device projects images onto the chest of the wearer using only an LED flashlight and handmade slides made of architectural foam. The first exhibition of this work provoked a security guard to interrogate us.

Think Tank
Think Tank

Think Tank is a room sized installation designed as a “vehicle” to share the experiences of those who have served in the military. The tank itself is a quarter scale model of an M1 tank made of paper-backed acid free foam core, which is screwed and bolted together. We have gathered stories from soldiers and their family and friends and transcribed them into text and cartoons, which sprawl across the surface of the tank.

The Post-Apocalyptic Coffee House
The Post-Apocalyptic Coffee House

The Post-Apocalyptic Coffee House is a multimedia installation and project launched at Torrance Art Museum’s Exhibition, “Prep School – Apocalyptic Visions and Survival Scenarios.” Think of it as the last coffee house on earth, a sandbag structure that provides a safe space to sit, drink a cup of coffee, and contemplate the end of the world.

Call and Response and Response
Call and Response and Response

Each work consists of the CALL statement, and 2 RESPONSE drawings. The “CALL” occurs when one of The Klines asks the other partner to draw “something”. Once that drawing is finished, the person who issued the CALL creates a second drawing (in RESPONSE to the first drawing). We alternate who initiates the CALL. The result of this project reinforces the manner in which we feed off of each other’s ideas. It also emphasizes the continued spirit of play and the duality that guides many of our projects.

The Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment – A large scale installation consisting of a colonnade displaying various themes based on religion and conflict. Each of the eight columns is primarily made using castings from commercially available molds. The juxtaposition and alteration of these molded forms create new meaning and iconography.

My Dinner with the Klines
My Dinner with the Klines

For years, The Klines have engaged in an unusual ritual by making art when dining out. It is one facet of their art that spawned their collaborative ventures. These works capture creativity at its most playful state, resulting in surprisingly complex and impromptu sculptures borne of only the materials at hand.

The Candy Store
The Candy Store

The Candy Store acknowledges the trend toward self-diagnosis and treatment. Due to rising healthcare costs by providing medicinal candy. This starter pack of inconsumable medicinal talismans is a welcome addition to the panoply of healthcare choices and is guaranteed to meet or exceed FDA standards for safety or effectiveness.