In his second solo exhibition with the gallery, and his debut at Zidoun-Bossuyt’s Paris location, Klos continues to evolve his sui generis collage constructions. Building images from his own woodblock printed source material, his work features a new element — wooden sticks enveloped in Japanese rice paper. As much as this choice of material echoes the deep roots of printmaking, it also exemplifies Klos’ gesture of both honoring and breaking with traditional art making processes. Similarly, Klos bends the convention of portraiture to stage his exploration of ‘identity-as-construct’. Each visage of his subjects is a hybrid; drawn from a composite of found photos, images of friends, and familial memories. Here, portraiture is less about likeness, but more an opportunity for subjective and ambitious storytelling.

Like many African American families, Klos’ family departed the American South for Detroit during the Great Migration for jobs in the city’s auto industry. The influx of labor from this new Black population would multiply the city’s economy exponentially. Ultimately, the grip of capitalism would lead to outsourcing jobs, leaving Detroit with swaths of abandoned buildings and land plots. Today, these plots and vacant structures are being reclaimed by sprouting weeds and indigenous wildflowers, reminiscent of Michigan’s days as undeveloped prairie land. Klos leverages the imagery of these wildflowers, embodying not only the ‘sprawl’ of migration, but also the resilience of the Black populace who built the American Midwest. Simultaneously, he turns his attention to Detroit’s enduring Art Deco architecture, a style that originated in Paris, and found a home in the once thriving American city. Klos harnesses these Art Deco motifs to indicate the city’s past ambition as a futuristic and ‘leading’ American city. These design patterns haunt his compositions, lingering in the background and impressing upon the faces of his subjects. In Klos’ own words, “One’s identity cannot be separated from the geography around them. Just as the environment is built by people, the environment in turn — builds us.”

In the show’s title, Klos’ reference to ‘Building’ is threefold. Firstly, ‘Building’ is the very act of constructing cities across the American Midwest through the industrial labor of a migrated Black population. As a verb, ‘Building’ refers to the process of constructing one’s identity from the influences in one’s own environment. And finally, as a noun, the word references the Art Deco buildings themselves, signifying Detroit’s collapsed capitalist promise. Woodblock printing, a medium richly steeped in African American art tradition and frequently used for creating political posters and pamphlets, and illustrations is a cornerstone of Klos’ practice. Following in the footsteps of revered artists such as Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White, Klos reimagines the portrayal of the Black figure within this medium. Unlike Klos’ predecessors, his figures are not in the act of labor, but rather restfully engaged with the sprawling wildflowers, and enjoying their status as portrait subjects.