Rob Kennedy

Having a tutorial with Rob Kennedy was very useful in opening up areas of my practice that I had been considering whilst writing my dissertation. These particular elements were focused on ideas of collaboration and participation and additionally the subversion of the traditional white cube gallery.

During my tutorial we touched upon Kennedy’s past exhibitions, especially his show at CCA in Glasgow. In this show he invited a group of artists and used their work to create a dialogue between the sometimes contrasting practices and methodologies. Also he broke down the conventions of the gallery space by relocating walls and integrating detritus from the back rooms of the gallery into the curation and the actual works. One piece that I found interesting was a tennis table piece. The table was set up in the gallery space and invited the gallery viewers to interact with it. This idea of interaction is something that I have struggled with throughout my time at university and by placing such an almost confrontational object in a gallery, the interaction was bluntly thrown at the viewer.

These ideas rather excited me as I have been looking into involving a more curatorial context with my work. Kennedy suggested having an exhibition in my university house, again something that me and my flatmates have been considering for a while. The subversion of traditional exhibition spaces could allow my work to function in a different context to that normally associated with the white cube. I am going to look into the politics of hosting an exhibition, if any, mainly regarding health and safety and see what the likelihood of this coming together could be.

As I was between studio spaces there wasn’t much of my work around which was quite useful in a way as I focused mainly on the conceptual areas that I had trouble with. We addressed many of these issues through conversations that lead to the above.

The lecture was slightly underwhelming after how inspiring the tutorial had been, though it was interesting to see images of the CCA show and to hear Kennedy go into more detail about certain parts of his practice.

I also went to a video screening/performance later that evening and was inspired to see some of Kennedy’s recent work. A particular piece stood out above the rest as it had a political context. It was an intense piece that essentially overloaded the senses through sound and moving image. This made me consider the use of sound in my work and also how I could potentially integrate video into my work. I particularly enjoyed the stretching and warping of speech. Now I am looking at distorting speeches from political statements and seeing if I can turn them into tones or choruses.