Kendell Geers

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Kendell Geers

Born May 1968
Nationality African / Belgium
Movement Conceptual Art


Kendell Geers is an artist, performance artist, musician and film-maker. In 1993, at the Venice Biennial, Kendell Geers changed his date of birth to MAY 1968. That same year, in Venice, Geers rose to international notoriety when he urinated in Marcel Duchamp's " Fountain." [1] He has exhibited globally since 1993 and participated in numerous exhibitions including Documenta, the Carnegie International, Havana Biennia, Kwang Ju Biennial, Taipei Biennial, Lyon Biennial as well as presented solo exhibitions in the CCA Cincinnati, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst Gent, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Aspen Art Museum and the CAC in Lyon.

Contents

[edit] Strategy

The following self-description of Kendell Geers outlines his artistic agenda:

“I am a white African living in a moment when people armed with razor blades can crash into the world’s most powerful buildings, a time when 15-million people in South Africa have AIDS, a time when the United States can declare war on Iraq for no reason other than fulfilling its own desire, a time when the pollution from the United States cause floods in Europe and droughts in Australia. I am living in a time where Contradiction, Truth, Desire, Passion and Anarchist are nothing more than the names of perfumes. I live in an age of digital reproduction where truth no longer exists in an image, where every image can be altered and changed and anybody can be erased from or inserted into history.” [2]

Over the years, Geers has consistently explored life, contemporary history and the implications of the abuse of power, violence, oppression, control as well as the collapse of belief systems and ideologies, using all possible media. A project by Geers is an attack. It is instinctual, direct and matches the brutality encountered in contemporary society. He proposes to the viewer an interrogation and asks for a definition of positions, thus creating a decisive discomfort.

The work of Kendell Geers eludes the comfort of easy categorization by defying definition and consciously refusing to fit into any prescribed format. Whereas at first sight the work seems to be the result of an effortless creation, in reality the truth could not be more different for lurking beneath the surface are various layers of meanings, references, histories and quotations.

A modern day alchemist, Geers' work is seeped in the lore and experiment of ancient mythology and tradition. The gods and goddesses of antiquity are brought to life and recast through the prism of the contemporary. Like the archetypal tricksters Hermes and Lilith, Geers prefers to inhabit the spaces between worlds, the border town, the twilight zone, the brothel, the place where roads cross and ideologies clash and intersect, the space where art and life meet each other in a head on collision.

As does the trickster, Geers prefers to use profanity to describe the sacred, turning expectations upside down and inside out. The banal obscenity is transformed into a complex visual mantra for meditation and contemplation. Art history is quoted andreferenced, then dissected with irreverence, humour and irony until it is finally resurrected and brought back to life breathing the unmistakable spirit of Kendell Geers.

Ancient alchemical traditions and techniques are used to destabilize the flamboyance of the quotidian and disrupt the easy consumption of popular culture. A master at masking his own methods and erasing his tracks, Geers' work demands more than a cursory glance and greater effort than a passing one liner. The visual is nothing more than a door that demands to be knocked on in order to gain entry. The work of art is a portal that, like the sphinx' question to Oedipus, demands answering before the initiation may begin. [3]

[edit] Background

In 1988 Kendell Geers was one of 143 young men that publically refused to enter serve in the South African Defence Force and faced either a life in exile or 6 years imprisonment in a civilian jail. [4] In 1989 he left South Africa and lived for a brief period in exile in the United Kingdom and New York where he worked as an assistant to artist Richard Prince. In 1990, once Nelson Mandela had been released from jail and Apartheid officially dismantled, geers returned to Johannesburg where he worked as an artist, and art critic, curator and performance artist.

From 1999 until 2004 he worked as the curator and art consult for Gencor which was later bought out by BHP Billiton. The collection focused on artists and works of art that were central to the Anti-Apartheid Movement spirit [5]. In 1997 Geers edited and published "Contemporary South African Art" with essays by Okwui Enwezor, Olu Oguibe, Colin Richards, Elizabeth Rankin and Julia Charlton [6]


[edit] Side Projects

Together with musician Patrick Codenys ( FRONT 242) and Ilse Ghekiere, Kendell Geers formed the Belgium Audio-Visual group "thefucKINGFUCKS" in 2007. The project grew out of the now defunkt "Red Sniper" collaboration between Geers and Codenys. It is rumoured that they are working on an album and DVD due for release sometime in 2008.

Kendell Geers designed the limited edition artwork for "1633" an EP by the Japanese noise musician, Merzbow. It was released in a limited edition of 100 copies in 12 inch vinyl. The release came with a felt slipmat designed by Geers, made in four different designs with twenty-five copies of each design.

[edit] External links

[edit] Bibliography:

"Argot" (1993) Publisher: Chalkham Hill Press

"Contemporary South African Art" (1997) Jonathan Ball Publishers, ISBN: 978-1868420391

"My Tongue in Your Cheek" (2002) Les Presse Du Reel,France, ISBN 2-7118-4374-2

"Kendell Geers" (2004) Publisher: Mondadori Electa, ISBN 8837030509

"Fingered" (2006) Publisher: Imschoot Uitgevers, ISBN 90 7736 233 9

"IRRESPEKTIV" (2007) Publisher: BOM / Actar, ISBN 978-8493487959

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Andrea Vinassa, Femina Magazine, Johannesburg, July 1993
  2. ^ http://www.yvon-lambert.com/artists/press_expo_pdf/ke_geers_pr_10_2007.pdf
  3. ^ Press Release POSTPUNKPAGANPOP de Pury Luxemburg Gallery, Zurich May 2008
  4. ^ Merret, C, Saunders, C, in Switzer L, Adhikari M, South Africa's Resistance Press, Ohio University, 2000, pg 473
  5. ^ A R T T H R O B
  6. ^ Contemporary South African Art, Jonathan Ball Publishers, 1997, ISBN: 978-1868420391