Kendell Geers - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Kendell Geers is an artist, performance artist, musician and film-maker. Geers was born in Johannesburg in 1968.Geers' commonly given birthdate of May 1968 is fictional. Freire Barnes, "Bring it on", Artist Pension Trust, 4 October 2007. Accessed 15 February 2011. In Venice in 1993, Geers rose to international notoriety when he urinated in Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...

's Fountain
Fountain (Duchamp)
Fountain is a 1917 work by Marcel Duchamp. It is one of the pieces which he called readymades. In such pieces he made use of an already existing object. In this case Duchamp used a urinal, which he titled Fountain and signed "R. Mutt". Readymades also go by the term Found object...

. He has exhibited globally since 1993 and participated in numerous exhibitions including Documenta

Documenta

documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...

, the Carnegie International

Carnegie International

The Carnegie International is the oldest North American exhibition of contemporary art from around the globe. It was first organized at the behest of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie on November 5, 1896 in Pittsburgh. Carnegie established the International to educate and inspire the...

, Havana Biennia, Istanbul Biennial, 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

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art

The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is an international centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne alongside the Gateshead Millennium Bridge in Gateshead, North East England, United Kingdom...

, Aspen Art Museum and the CAC in Lyon.

Kendell Geers is represented in Paris by Yvon Lambert Gallery

Yvon Lambert Gallery

Yvon Lambert Gallery is a contemporary art gallery founded by Yvon Lambert in 1966. There are two locations; one in Paris and the second in New York City.-History:...

and in London by Stephen Friedman Gallery.

Background

In 1988, Kendell Geers was one of 143 young men who publicly refused to serve in the South African Defence Force and faced either a life in exile or 6 years imprisonment in a civilian jail. 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

Richard Prince

Richard Prince is an American painter and photographer. Prince began appropriating photographs in 1975...

.

It was only after Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...

and other political prisoners' release from prison, that Geers could return from exile to Johannesburg without fear of being imprisoned. In 1990, he returned to Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

where he worked as an artist, and art critic, curator and performance artist. The first work of art he created back on South African soil was "Bloody Hell", a ritual washing of his white Afrikaaner Boer

Boer

Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer, which came to denote the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 18th century, as well as those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to settle in the Orange Free State,...

body with his own fresh blood.

From 1999 until 2004, Geers worked as the curator and art consult for Gencor which was later bought out by BHP Billiton

BHP Billiton

BHP Billiton is a global mining, oil and gas company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and with a major management office in London, United Kingdom...

. The collection focused on artists and works of art that were central to the Anti-Apartheid Movement spirit. In 1997 Geers edited and published Contemporary South African Art, with essays by Okwui Enwezor

Okwui Enwezor

Okwui Enwezor is an Igbo Nigerian-born American curator, art critic, writer, poet, educator, and specializing in art history. He lives in New York.- Biography :...

, Olu Oguibe

Olu Oguibe

Olu Oguibe is an artist and public intellectual. Professor of Art and African-American Studies and interim Director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, Oguibe is a senior fellow of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, New...

, and others.

Side projects

Together with musician Patrick Codenys (Front 242

Front 242

Front 242 is a pioneering Belgian electronic music group that came into prominence during the 1980s. They are known for being the premier pioneer of electronic body music and as a major influence on the electronic and industrial music genres.-Formation:...

) and Ilse Ghekiere, Kendell Geers formed the Belgium Audio-Visual group "thefucKINGFUCKS

ThefucKINGFUCKS

thefucKINGFUCKS is an underground Belgium industrial rock performance art group that began as a musical side-project for controversial visual artist Kendell Geers, Patrick Codenys of Front 242 and Choreographer / Performer Ilse Ghekiere from Charleroi Danses...

" in 2007. The project grew out of the now defunct "Red Sniper" collaboration between Geers and Codenys.

Kendell Geers designed the artwork for 1633, an EP by the Japanese noise musician, Merzbow

Merzbow

is the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...

. It was released in an edition of 100 copies in 12 inch vinyl, with a felt slipmat designed by Geers, made in four different designs with twenty-five copies of each.

Terminal 5, 2004

In 2004, the disused Saarinen

Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...

-designed TWA Flight Center

TWA Flight Center

The TWA Flight Center or Trans World Flight Center, opened in 1962 as a standalone terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport .for Trans World Airlines...

(now Jetblue Terminal 5) at JFK Airport

John F. Kennedy International Airport

John F. Kennedy International Airport is an international airport located in the borough of Queens in New York City, about southeast of Lower Manhattan. It is the busiest international air passenger gateway to the United States, handling more international traffic than any other airport in North...

briefly hosted "Terminal 5

Terminal 5 (exhibition)

Terminal 5 was an art exhibition that took place in October 2004 at the then disused Eero Saarinen–designed TWA Flight Center at New York's JFK Airport....

", an exhibition of art inspired by travel and the terminal's architecture, and including work by Geers. It closed abruptly after the building itself was vandalized during the opening party.

External links

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