Born in Germiston (South Africa) in May 1968, he now lives in Brussels.
Kendell Geers develops a polymorphic work where objects, installations, recent video works reusing existing films, appear inseparable from his critical texts or his performances. One of the first ones consisted in changing his date of birth into « May 68 ». The year 1968 is indeed a programmatic date for him, because the students started a revolution, Marcel Duchamp disappeared and Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle had just been published.
Kendell Geers defines himself as a terrorist in the field of art and claims the need to take a stand. For nearly 15 years, he has been forcefully exploring the collapse of belief systems and ideologies by using all possible materials: pornographic images, but also emblematic figures from the History of Art (such as the Victory of Samothrace) or the History of Religions repainted with the Fuck motif, as well as installations made of barbed wire or truncheons. In this way, he constantly explores social limits, to interpret them in a very personal artistic form. With an art that is aware of the things of the world, Kendell Geers does not intend to impose his personal views, but to place the viewer in front of his own choices.
A major retrospective, organised by Okwui Enwezor, was held at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in 2013. He took part in Documenta 14 in 2017 and Documenta 11 in 2002 in Kassel, Germany. Geers’ work was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2019, 2007 and 1993. Kendell Geers’ work has been shown at the Setouchi Triennale in 2022, and at the Bruges and Courtrai Triennales in Belgium in 2021. In 2022, he presented a new solo show at Galerie Eric Mouchet Paris. The exhibition covered thirty-four years of artistic reflection and an opportunity to discover founding works never unveiled to the public before, works whose impact resonates with gravity in the face of contemporary social issues.
Kendell Geers’s work is included in numerous museum collections such as BPS22, Charleroi (BE), Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR), Chicago Art Institute (USA), Cleveland Museum (USA), EMST, Athens (GR), MACRO Museum, Rome (IT), Magasin III, Stockholm (SE), MAXXI Museum, Rome (IT), MuHKA, Antwerp (BE), SDMA, San Diego (USA), S.M.A.C.K, Ghent (BE), Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg (ZA). And foundation collections such as A/Political, London (UK), Collection Lambert, Avignon (FR), David Roberts Foundation, London (UK), D. Daskalopoulos Collection, Athens (GR), Gencor (Billiton), Johannesburg (ZA), Gervanne+Matthias Leridon Collection, Paris (FR), Isabel & Agustín Coppel Collection, Mexico City (MX), Linda Pace Foundation, San Antonio (USA), Marc & Josee Gensollen collection, Marseille (FR), Mark Vanmoerkerke collection, Ostend (BE), Margulies Collection, Miami (USA), Olbricht Collection, Berlin (DE), P.O.C , Galila Barzilaï-Hollander, Brussels (BE), Sammlung Goetz, Munich (DE), Sindika Dokolo Foundation, Luanda (AO), Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels (BE), Wendy Fisher Foundation, London (UK).
MORE INFO :
// Biography
// Press review
EXHIBITIONS & FAIRS:
// The Plague Is Me. Une vie de détournements (10/15-12/17/2022 | Galerie Eric Mouchet Paris)
// Art Basel Miami Beach (12/4-8/2024 | Miami FL, USA)
Artists