Arnold J. Kemp (b. 1968, Boston, Massachusetts, US) lives and works in Chicago, Illinois, US. He is an artist, curator, writer and educator whose similarly versatile practice explores the many vectors along which identity is formed and can likewise slip out of place.
Some of the artist’s work features several Arnold Kemps, including the blogger who created the Dungeons & Dragons monster for which his recent show with JOAN, Los Angeles is named: FALSE HYDRAS. A false hydra eradicates the memory of whomever it consumes, then grows a new head that resembles its recent prey.
Among Kemp’s most developed series are his works on paper employing prints and collages of aluminium foil masks. Cutting three physiognomic holes out of this impoverished material, which reflects a humorously warped and unreliable image, Kemp creates haunting, evocative images that telegraph aggression, shame, love, and fear … but ultimately and lovingly maintain the same slippery ambiguity Kemp has applied to his own identity.
Kemp’s work is in public and private collections, including The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Portland Art Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Manetti Shrem Museum at UC Davis, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Kemp was Associate Curator for visual art at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco from 1993-2003, and his work has been recognised by a Guggenheim Fellowship, Pollock Krasner Grant, Joan Mitchell Fellowship, Warhol Foundation for the Arts, among the most prestigious and coveted awards of excellence in fine art and writing.
Exhibitions
Servane Mary, Barry X Ball, David Adamo, Yuji Agematsu, Ryan Foerster, Jason Fox, Tillman Kaiser, Arnold J. Kemp, L, Justin Matherly, John Miller, Christopher Myers, Nikholis Planck, Nicolas Roggy, Sally Ross, Davina Semo, TARWUK, Gert and Uwe Tobias, Frederick Weston, Servane Mary, Huma Bhabha, Kathleen Ryan
Strange Attractors The Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Art Vol. 3: Lost In Space
