Kali's Long-Hidden Images Get Viewing Party In Palm Springs

PALM SPRINGS, CA — The Palm Springs Art Museum Wednesday announced it will host its Fall Exhibitions Party, to celebrate the opening of the new "Kali, Artographer, 1932-2019" exhibition in mid-November.

The party will get underway at 6 p.m. for museum members and 7 p.m. for non-members on Nov. 18 in the Palm Springs Art Museum's Annenberg Theater, 101 Museum Drive, according to a statement from the museum.

The event will feature live musical performances, tunes from DJ Al Lover, Bar One signature cocktails, Little Livs' Chef Gabe Woo snacks, interactive performances and takeaways, museum officials said.

The new exhibition that's set to be celebrated, along with other ongoing exhibitions, will feature photography from Joan Archibald, who reinvented herself as a photographer and took Kali as her name after the Hindu goddess, according to museum officials. She moved to Palm Springs in the '60s and experimented with photography.

"Kali developed approaches that used the classic tools of analog photography, but she manipulated her images in strikingly original ways suggestive of the psychedelic aesthetics of the time," museum officials wrote in a statement. "Shooting on black-and-white film, she placed the prints in her swimming pool, physically agitating them as she applied dyes, paints, spray developer, and even organic material."

Museum officials said that Kali then left the prints to dry in the sun, which resulted in her one-of-a-kind images.

In 2019 after she passed, her daughter Susan Archibald found the collection of images hidden in her mother's home, according to museum officials. It was then that Kali became recognized as a significant innovator in alternate photography.

Attendees interested in viewing her photos can attend the party or visit the museum to view the exhibition, which will be on display until April 8, 2024. Tickets for the event starting at $20 can be purchased at psmuseum.org.