LYON - MAC - KENDELL GEERS
IRRESPEKTIV
19.09.2008 > 04.01.2009

Irrespektiv represents the first extensive retrospective of the artist Kendell Geers. The exhibition is a co-production between several European institutions and was on view at the SMAK in Ghent and BPS 22 in Charleroi in 2007. After the BALTIC in Newcastle, the retrospective has now arrivied in Lyon.

The exhibition covers the different aspects which run like red threads through Geers' entire oeuvre, e.g. questions of geography, linguistics, politics, society, sexuality and psychology. On the occasion of the show at the museum the artist has specially created new artworks for the exhibition space.

Kendell Geers' work is strongly influenced by the social and political conditions which could (and still can) be found in South-Africa, namely the apartheid. Therefore, he continuously uses a wide variety of different materials deriving from the political and he often utilises a violent mode of expression to articulate his artistic points of vue. His art is characterised by a multiplicity of media used (objects, installations, videos, performances), but in a very coherent way. Geers calls himself a 'terrorist' in the field of art, i.e. through his art he wants to take a firm stand: He explores and criticizes our world in a very confrontational manner by turning his gaze to the phenomenon of alienation which he discovers in many objects, images and situations of the everyday. However, this critical positioning does not end up in a one-sided approach. On the contrary, it constantly questions the conditions of good and evil and the interdependance of these principles which underly all things.

More information: www.mac-lyon.com

Image :
Kendell Geers
Fuckface (Kendell Geers), 2007
Photo Lydie Nesvadba