NEW YORK, NY.- James Cohan announced the representation of Kennedy Yanko in collaboration with Salon 94.
Working with paint skins and found metal, Kennedy Yanko constructs sublime sculptures and architecturally scaled installations that defy the limits of their own materiality. Steeped in the visual language of Abstract Expressionism, Action, and Color Field Painting, Yanko’s works cast off the boundaries of their medium, occupying the generative spaces between painting and sculpture, abstraction and figuration, surreal and earthbound.
Central to Yanko’s practice is her work with paint skins – a material created by pouring many gallons of paint onto a flat surface that is lifted and shaped into a tarp-like entity once it’s nearly dry. Yanko positions these abstracted painterly gestures within the meticulously crafted metal armatures she has sourced, welded, torched, and bent. The process of marrying paint with metal is laborious, requiring both power and innovation to twist and mold the skins onto their dynamic salvaged supports.
Despite the conspicuous solidity of Yanko’s materials, her sculptures and installations often appear weightless – as if they were on the verge of taking flight or drawing breath. By employing paint skin and metal in ways that both transmute a bodily essence and reposition the logic of gravity and form, Yanko works to expand and challenge the limits of her viewers’ perception.
Yanko’s work is currently on view in Giants: Art from the Dean Collection at the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY and The Beauty of Diversity at the Albertina Modern, Vienna, Austria. A major public project with the Art Production Fund is forthcoming.
David Norr, Partner at James Cohan, remarks: “Kennedy is an artist who is entirely aware of the limitations of her materials yet pushes past them. Rooted in a rigorous engagement with the history of art, Kennedy transforms the modernist canon into a palimpsest of epic and ephemeral possibilities in which states of being converge with ecstatic flows of color. I’ve been fortunate to watch Kennedy emerge as one of the great sculptors of her generation, and we are thrilled to be working with her in this next important chapter of her career. We are delighted to partner with Salon 94, whose commitment to championing diverse artistic voices mirrors our own long-standing mission.”
Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Founder of Salon 94, expands: “Having cut her artistic teeth on the formalism, rigor and physicality of 60s and 70s minimalism and process art, Kennedy Yanko has since manifested a singular superpower enfolding her trademark skins as figuration, color as emotion and muscle as energy. Drawing on my longstanding relationship with Kennedy – galvanized in small part by a shared background in St Louis – this moment reaffirms Salon 94’s continued dedication to supporting radical female artists. We are positioned to bring this unique standpoint to our collaboration with James Cohan – whose ambitions in expanding beyond the traditional arts canon match our own – to ensure Kennedy’s important works reach as wide audiences as possible.”
