Kendell geers born
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Kendell Geers
Geers describes himself as ‘AniMystikAKtivist’, weaving together diverse Afro-European traditions, from animism and activism to alchemy and mysticism. Employing diverse references — from the realms of art history, linguistics, poetry, protest, and play — his works question artistic value and mock notions of originality.
Geers was born in Germiston, South Africa and now lives and works in Brussels. At the age of fifteen, he ran away from home to join the Anti-Apartheid movement, eventually fleeing the country to London and then New York. At the 1993 Venice Biennale he officially changed his birth date to May 1968, a momentous year in world history for political protest and equality. This act represented Geers’ rejection of the cultural heritage that had shaped his upbringing and his rebirth as an artist and activist.
Spanning a bred range of media, Geers’ paintings, sculptures and interventions employ wordplay and densely laye
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Kendell Geers (b. 1968, South Africa) uses various media such as installation, drawing, video, performance and photography. He gained international recognition through his participation in Documenta 11 (2002) and his active global exhibition activity.
His life and work can be divided into two decade-long periods whose trajectories and developments are explored in this exhibition. 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 the relationships 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
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South African-born, Belgian artist Kendell Geers changed his date of birth to May 1968 in order to give birth to himself as a work of art. Describing himself as an ‘AniMystikAKtivist’, Geers takes a syncretic approach to art that weaves together diverse Afro-European traditions, including animism, alchemy, mysticism, ritual and a socio-political activism laced with black humour, irony and cultural contradiction.
Geers’s work has been shown in numerous international group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2007) and Documenta (2002). Major solo shows include Heart of Darkness at Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town (1993), Third World Disorder at Goodman Gallery Cape Town (2010) and more recently Songs of Innocence and of Experience at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg (2012). His exhibition Irrespektiv travelled to Newcastle, Ghent, Salamanca and Lyon between 2007 and 2009. Geers was included on Art Unlimited at Art 42 Basel in 2011. Work by Gee