Meet the Artists:
AiB in Conversation with Kennedy Yanko, Lutfi Janania, and Zachary Tye Richardson
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
This week we are excited to speak with artists Kennedy Yanko, Zachary Tye Richards, and Lutfi Janania about Our Valence, currently on view in the Art-in-Buildings Gallery at Travelers Towers in Southfield Michigan. We will screen the film Our Valence, produced in conjunction with the installation, followed by a conversation with the three artists behind the project.
Our Valence is a performance-driven installation comprised of exotic florals, organic material, found metal and paint skins, and narrative bodily movement. It is a somaesthetic enactment of creating the indivisible: building the building blocks of matter. This room represents the personifying moment when seemingly opposite forces harmonize. Our Valence exists as the repetitive moment that begins and ends again and again. It must occur before life can be seen, felt, heard, or perceived as a whole.
Here, corporal sensation and its accompanying ricochet of human phenomena remind viewers of their potential for an ever-expanding spectrum of experience. This space, designated for self-experimentation, is where intellectualization rests, gazes at, and learns from its proprioceptive counterpart: intuition.
Kennedy Yanko (b. 1988) is a Brooklyn-based artist working primarily with found objects and paint. Her formal gesture towards material is balanced by an intuitive response to the shapes, colors, textures and scale that she's presented with. Perception, too, is one of her elements, which she imbues with ambiguity and uncertainty by intentionally blurring the seemingly hard lines between metal and paint. Since debuting sculptures from her "Elements and Skin" collection as part of a Derrick Adams-curated group show, "Hidden in Plain Sight" (Jenkins Johnson Project Space. Brooklyn, NY. 2017), Yanko has regularly exhibited domestically and internationally. In 2019, Yanko debuted three solo shows--Highly Worked (Denny Dimin Gallery, NY), Hannah (Kavi Gupta, Chicago), and Before Words (UICA, Grand Rapids)--and installed her first public sculpture, 3 WAYS, on the Poydras Corridor in New Orleans in collaboration with The Helis Foundation and the Ogden Museum of Art. In 2019, Yanko was also named Art Forum’s “Critic’s Pick,” received a Colene Brown Art Prize awarded by BRIC Arts Media, and was featured in 100 Sculptors of Tomorrow published by Thames & Hudson. In the last couple of years, Yanko has also exhibited in institutional settings: with the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (Parallels and Peripheries curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah) and with University of South Florida (Life During WarTime, curated by Christian Viveros). Yanko’s 2020 brings an exciting lineup of exhibitions, one of the most anticipated being her solo show, SALIENT QUEENS, opening with VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES in September. Her work belongs to corporate collections including that of JP Morgan Chase and TD Bank, and many private collections, namely: Beth Rudin deWoody, Helyn Goldenberg, David Hoberman.
Born in the tropical paradise of Honduras, Lutfi found stimulation via his lush surroundings. Everyday he awoke immersed in a vast rainforest on the basin of the mountains in his hometown, San Pedro Sula. After moving to Europe his innate fascination for Victorian and baroque aesthetic grew and informed his current designs and inventive probing of organic materials. Having worked in fashion for over a decade, Lutfi’s expertise ranged from set design to styling to production and direction. With this experience, he saw an opportunity to bring his nostalgic passion and merge the worlds of floral design with the art of fashion, creating a truly unique experience. Lutfi’s studio is currently based in Brooklyn, his practice revolves around forming meaning and narrative with exotic flora creating large, compelling sculptures.
Zachary Tye Richardson is a Brooklyn based artist who is interested in physical investigations, including but not limited to: movement, voice, theatre, and fashion. Richardson explores concepts through movement designs that are created for the viewer's personal interpretation. He is intrigued with somatic relations and how they associate with emotional connectivity. Richardson continues to research the kinesthetic body with instinctual energy to fulfill her curiosity. They have been included in exhibitions with Volta/Armory Art Fair, The Living Gallery, Long Gallery Harlem, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Postmasters Gallery, and Participant INC. Choreographies have been shown through Gibney, Movement Research, WAXworks, and Dance Canvas ATL.
Meet the Artist: AiB in Conversation is sponsored by the Time Equities Inc. (TEI) Art-in-Buildings. TEI is committed to enriching the experience of our properties through the Art-in-Buildings Program, an innovative approach that brings contemporary art by emerging and mid-career artists to non-traditional exhibition spaces in the interest of promoting artists, expanding the audience for art, and creating a more interesting environment for our building occupants, residents, and their guests.