Kendell Geers

Kendell Geers is an artist, performance artist, musician and film-maker. Geers was born in Johannesburg. As a work of art, he changed his date of birth to May 1968 at the Venice Biennial in 1993. At the same Venice Biennial Geers rose to international notoriety in 1993 when he urinated in Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. He has exhibited globally since 1993 and participated in numerous exhibitions including Documenta, the Carnegie International, Havana Biennial, Istanbul Biennial, Kwang Ju Biennial, Taipei Biennial, Gwangju Biennale, Lyon Biennial, Glasstress at the Venice Biennale, 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.

Kendell Geers is represented in Paris by Yvon Lambert Gallery; in London by Stephen Friedman Gallery; in Brussels by Galerie Rodolphe Jansenn; Galleria Continua in San Gimignano, Beijing and Le Moulin; and Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg.

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.

It was only after Nelson Mandela 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 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 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. 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, Olu Oguibe, and others.

1988-2012
In January 2013 Geers retrospective called "1988-2012" opened at the Haus der Kunst in Munich.

The exhibition divided his life and work into two decade-long periods. The first political phase runs from 1988 to 2000, during which time the artist, a white South African, explored the moral and ethical contradictions of the apartheid system through his practice. Geers developed a visual vocabulary characterized by provocation as well as humor by using found objects such as barbed wire or glass shards. By appropriating historical events and ideas, he focused on questions of relationship between individual and society. It was in this context that Geers changed his date of birth to May 1968, the start of the student and civil revolution, and joined every political party in the period before South Africa’s first democratic elections, from the extreme right-wing to the Communist party. In this way, he expressed his doubts about the fetishization of party politics.

Initiated by his move to Brussels in 2000, his later European period is now characterized by a more poetic aesthetic. Here, Geers transferred his incendiary practice into a post-colonial and increasingly global context, suggesting more universal themes like terrorism, spirituality, and mortality. As such, the artist’s life and work can be said to constitute a living archive composed of political events, photographs, letters, and literary texts that serve as a source of inspiration and represent a continuation of his oeuvre.

Side projects
Together with musician Patrick Codenys (Front 242) Kendell Geers formed the Belgium Audio-Visual group "thefucKINGFUCKS" 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. 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
In 2004, the disused Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center (now Jetblue Terminal 5) at JFK Airport briefly hosted "Terminal 5", 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.