The School of Art is pleased to welcome Devin Kenny as an inaugural Rosalind Harris Visiting Critic as part of the Charles Gaines Faculty Chair program for spring 2023.
Devin Kenny is an artist, writer, and musician. Born on the South Side of Chicago, Kenny relocated to New York City as a teenager. Kenny went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts from University of California, Los Angeles, in addition to attending the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. Kenny has participated in residencies at the Rauschenberg Foundation, SOMA Mexico, Bemis Center, MFAH Core, Shandaken Projects, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Kenny has exhibited, performed, and lectured across the United States, and in galleries and institutions abroad. Select venues include MoMA PS1, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, The Kitchen, Performance Space, REDCAT, Queens Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Ludlow38/Goethe Institut, Julia Stoschek Collection Dusseldorf, and the IMT Gallery in London among others. On Instagram: @crashingwavy, Kenny (as Devin KKenny) has a first official release NY Lottery/CBD Kratom, out now via PTP: a New York-based audio collective focused on sound art, noise, hip-hop, and more.
Kenny will be conducting studio visits, workshops, and talks with the CalArts creative community between April 10-14, 2023.
Headshot: Devin Kenny
Thursday, April 13, 2023 at 4:30 pm: Artist Talk
By fluctuating between the research-responsive and the intuitive, and frequently with sharp humor, Devin Kenny uses a wide modality of mediums and modes of distribution to complicate ideas on contemporary culture as it has been impacted by network technology by “any means possible”. Kenny’s current research proposes the syncretic cultures of the Black Atlantic as a forerunner to the logic of contemporary network culture and uses that as a launchpad for social and aesthetic critique.