Morag Keil
Morag Keil’s practice is ouroboric: self-referring, self-erasing, self-consuming, regurgitating. Keil’s installations have the bald efficiency of something bargain-bucket but workable. This amateurish construction — of clunky papier-mâché houses downtrodden with office heels, of a low-fi camera’s glitchy rove over motorbikes — actualises her reflection of contemporaneity’s squashing and conditioning of subjectivity, as well as the interlocking of production and pleasure. Beneath the watermark of professionalism and propriety lies a cesspit of personal contradictions and anxiety-trimmed mediations.
Through a wide variety of mediums including painting, photography, sculpture, installation and video, as well as collaborative projects with artists such as Georgie Nettell, Keil’s work often relieve the aestheticising cliché of post-financial crash and millennial precarity. In her gallery exhibition, Here We Go Again, the artist simulated in three dimensions an out of date video game mocking home automation: doors with peepholes open up to doors, walls painted in soft pink and green screen, and televisions playing a lush forest CGI animation from a BBC One ident, which then cut to a blue circle that wobbled as a voice-over asked in the half-droning tones of Amazon’s virtual assistant, Alexa. Behind Keil’s work is the demand to know why we live like this and the impulse to tear it all down; but, until that happens, we wander.
Her celebrated solo institutional exhibition, Moarg Keil, presented a survey of a decade’s work at the Institute for Contemporary Arts, London in 2019. Keil recently presented her third solo exhibition at Project Native Informant, Free Like Only Animals Can Be.

Installation View
Morag Keil
Free Like Only Animals Can Be, 2022
Project Native Informant, London

Morag Keil
Pepsi playing Animal Crossing
2022
Acrylic on canvas, collage, dentist lamp, LED light, steel, plastic and found material on steel pegboard
50 x 128 x 16 cm
19 3/4 x 50 3/8 x 6 1/4 in

Morag Keil
Pepsi
2022
Acrylic on canvas, plastic toy lamp, epoxy resin, wheels, circuit boards, collage and disk tray on steel pegboard
64 x 43 x 8 cm
25 1/4 x 16 7/8 x 3 1/8 in

Morag Keil
Clock
2018
Found shoes and clock mechanism
Dimensions variable

Installation View
Morag Keil
LIFES, 2021
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Installation View
Morag Keil
Nothing To Write Home About, Kim?, 2022
Contemporary Art Centre, Riga

Installation View
Morag Keil
Moarg Keil, 2019
Institute of Contemporary Art, London

Morag Keil
Still: passive aggressive
2016
Single-channel video
11 mins, 04 secs

Installation View
Morag Keil
Here We Go Again, 2018
Project Native Informant, London

Installation View
Morag Keil
Here We Go Again, 2018
Project Native Informant, London

Morag Keil
Palais de Token (Grey Portrait)
2013
Acrylic on canvas
65 x 54 x 2 cm
25 5/8 x 21 1/4 x 3/4 in

Morag Keil
Reap what you sow
2013
Wood, cotton, metal bucket and toy cars
Dimensions variable

Morag Keil, Georgie Nettell
Still: The Fascism of Everyday Life
2016
Single-channel HD video
11 mins, 44 secs

Morag Keil, Georgie Nettell
Still: The Fascism of Everyday Life
2016
Single-channel HD video
11 mins, 44 secs

Morag Keil
Computer 2
2016
Oil on canvas
36 x 45.5 x 2 cm
14 1/8 x 17 7/8 x 3/4 in

Morag Keil
Blob 1
2016
Vinyl
Dimensions variable

Morag Keil
Carrera by Jimmy Choo
2016
Paper collage in artist frame
31.5 x 21.5 x 1.5 cm
12 3/8 x 8 1/2 x 5/8 in

Morag Keil
Let's Buy Back Our Piece of Mind
2016
Pen and collage on paper, framed
58.5 x 79 x 2 cm
23 1/8 x 31 1/8 x 3/4 in

Installation View
Morag Keil
Passive Aggressive, 2016
Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin

Installation View
Morag Keil
Would you eat your friends?, 2014
Real Fine Arts, New York City

Morag Keil
Detail: Helmet
2017
Found motorcycle helmet and flip cam
28 x 25 x 33 cm
11 x 10 x 13 in

Installation View
Morag Keil
Potpourri, 2013
Cubitt Gallery, London

Morag Keil
Still: Potpourri
2013
Single-channel HD video
7 mins, 14 secs

Morag Keil
Still: Potpourri
2013
Single-channel HD video
7 mins, 14 secs

Installation View
Morag Keil
Would you eat your friends?, 2014
Real Fine Arts, New York

Morag Keil
Untitled (Cube)
2016
C-type prints on foam board
50 x 50 x 50 cm
19 3/4 x 19 3/4 x 19 3/4 in

Installation View
Morag Keil
Civil War, 2012
Outpost Gallery, Norwich

Morag Keil
Untitled (Piss Painting 1)
2014
Oxidized copper water-based paint on canvas
72 x 56 x 2 cm
28 3/8 x 22 1/8 x 3/4 in

Morag Keil
Untitled (Piss Painting 3)
2014
Oxidized copper water-based paint on canvas
72 x 56 x 2 cm
28 3/8 x 22 1/8 x 3/4 in

Installation View
Morag Keil
L.I.B.E.R.T.Y., 2014
Project Native Informant, London

Installation View
Morag Keil
Universe, 2017
Life Sport, Berlin

Installation View
Morag Keil
Universe, 2017
Life Sport, Berlin

Morag Keil
Elle
2013
Acrylic on paper
Dimensions variable

Installation View
Morag Keil
Moarg Kiel, 2011
Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Solo Exhibitions

A LIFE LESS ORDINARY
Ivory Tars, Glasgow

Free Like Only Animals Can Be
PNI, London

Here We Go Again
PNI, London

L.I.B.E.R.T.Y.
PNI, London

Moarg Keil
Institute of Contemporary Art, London

Potpourri
Cubitt Gallery, London

Civil War
Outpost Gallery, Norwich

Moarg Kiel
Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Virginia Ham
Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen

Inside
100 Bell Towers, Montreal

THEY
Consortium Dijon
Group Shows
Morag Keil
Lifes
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Morag Keil
Stop Painting
Fondazione Prada, Venice

Morag Keil
Haunted Haus
Swiss Institute, New York

Hal Fischer, Morag Keil
Maskulinitäten
Bonner Kunstverein, Kölnischer Kunstverein and Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf

Georgie Nettell, Morag Keil
Questionnaire
Yale Union, Portland

Georgie Nettell, Morag Keil
HOME
LUMA Westbau, Zurich

Morag Keil
Looks
Institute of Contemporary Art, London

Morag Keil, Georgie Nettell
Questionnaire
PNI Online

Morag Keil
MOMENTUM 12 - Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art
Galleri F 15, Moss, Norway

Juliana Huxtable, Morag Keil
LISTE 2017
LISTE, Basel

DIS, GCC, Morag Keil
Art Cologne 2017
Art Cologne, Cologne

DIS, Georgie Nettell, Morag Keil
Various Others
Deborah Schamoni, Munich

Flo Brooks, Morag Keil, Sean Steadman
Frieze London 2018
Frieze, London

Georgie Nettell, Morag Keil
Frieze London 2015
Frieze, London

DIS, Morag Keil, Sean Steadman
Independent New York 2016
Independent, New York

Dozie Kanu, Morag Keil
HOI KÖLN PART 1: WELCOMING THE SPACE
Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne

Morag Keil
THEY
Le Consortium, Dijon
