Kara Jefts

Kara Jefts is a curator, art historian, and artist who received her MA in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago and her BA in Art History and Asian Studies from Union College. She always wished she had been a dancer and believes most in a Frankie Knuckles quote: “the dance floor is a sacred space.”

In order to better understand the modern Japanese avant-garde, I am interested in re-embodying images within contemporary artist networks.  My work centers around themes of ero guro nansensu (erotic grotesque nonsense) and the activity of an artist group associated under the name Mavo (active 1923-1926). My aim is not to replicate experience, but instead, to learn from the ways in which themes repeat themselves across cultures and historic time periods.