Richard Kennedy

In the wake, a bleak yet joyous lull sits idle in our basement. Imbibe is a four-day happening taking place during Frieze NY in a Flatiron basement featuring one work by Richard Kennedy: There's a Rave in Guevara.

The singularity of one artwork hanging in the dark present. Richard Kennedy's use of tapestry and weaving serves as a solution to their break from the mundane and deranged, a tactical strategy to render the duality of joy and anxiety. Sex. On a functionless playground, where do we find the courage to play? To fail is to try and surrender to the unknown—to discover a new path in the ruins of a weak signal. Turning failures into triumphs, the artist confronts waste, creative error, and the ability to tear one thought to shreds; weaving different gestures and moments into a tapestry, giving form to continued effort and truth. Using an oversized cargo net as a grid to hold and transport the meditative process of warp land weft—Kennedy is forced to constantly make decisions and create a system of harmony and dissonance, a silent symphony turned wall hanging. A plastic net on the wall is one less likely to end up in the ocean. The vibrant colors of the tapestry those found in nature, transporting us into a neon landscape of infinite pathways up the wall and cascading from the ceiling.

Richard Kennedy (b. 1985) multidisciplinary practice is interested in relationships and navigating sexuality as it occurs at the intersection of class, race, and gender. Considering opera through a language of African-American experience drawing on the oral histories told through spirituals and chain gang songs. Kennedy disrupts the tradition of Western theater in order to generate new participatory modes of viewership. Through creating costumes and set design for opera, Kennedy was drawn to painting, sculpture, and video— drawing on a process of layering, obfuscation, and temporality (slowness) that contradicts his practice in live performance. Recent solo shows include Acey-Deuce( Jeonnam Museum of Art), Libretto Accidentale (Peres Projects Milan), Awake in a Nightmare (Kunsthalle Winterthur). Creative Director of The Nano Ensemble, Guttural at Park Avenue Armory , Hybrid Peasant at Performance Space New York. Recent performances include: Black Swan's Song (Creative Director, Performance Space New York Gala 2023, 2024), Zeferina (The Industry LA), Reverence, and Ever (Palais De Tokyo). Kennedy is a graduate of The Milton Avery Institute at Bard College (MFA).

Persona Non Grata is a performative press and nomadic curatorial project from KJ Freeman formerly of Housing Gallery(2017-2023).

KJ Freeman (b. 1992) is a writer, curator, artist, and professional dominatrix raised in NYC. Their curatorial practice focuses on race, gender, class, and the current intersection of unseen populations such as sex workers. A proud college dropout of Columbia College Chicago (2013), they are also an autistic activist. She was awarded the Gramercy International Prize at the Armory Art Fair in 2021 and have served on the jury/panel for Creative Capital, Abrons Arts Center, & A.I.R Gallery. KJ has curated inaugural solo exhibitions of Nathaniel Oliver (2020), American Artist (2018), and has guest-curated at Gavin Brown Enterprises featuring a performance by Baseera Khan in 2018. In 2022, for Curated By(Vienna), KJ curated a group exhibition at Galerie Kandlhofer featuring the work of Catalina Ouyang, Harry Gould Harvey IV, and Calli Roche. They are currently working on a book titled Sex, Death, & Capital, set to be released in the fall of 2024. The owner of nomadic project space Persona.Non.Grata & experimental art advisory firm Primary Secondary.

Their writing can be found in Hyperallergic, Spike Magazine, and their Instagram.