Vielmetter Los Angeles is thrilled to announce a two-person presentation of new works by Genevieve Gaignard and Kennedy Yanko at our booth for the 2021 Armory Show. Working across disciplines, Gaignard and Yanko are dexterous mavericks in their re-interpretation of materials, emphasizing the meaning of materials through context and juxtaposition. Our presentation of work will include several new collages by Gaignard and four sculptures by Yanko placed in dialogue with one another.

Gaignard’s collages combine vintage wallpaper and images from magazines, such as Ebony and Life to name a few, along with found objects from thrift and antique stores to bring materials in dialogue with each other and extrapolate on stereotypes and entrenched cultural standards of beauty and desire along the lines of race, gender, and class. The collages in this presentation use text to explicitly address issues of racial equity as they continue to exist within the art world and beyond. “Sell to Black Collectors” and “Black is Excellence” call on the viewer to consider the ways in which racial discrimination is perpetuated and to make an active effort towards change.

Yanko’s sculptures fuse found and often powerfully crushed metal pieces with smooth paint skins to create sculptures that exude a sense of movement and theatricality. Through the process of juxtaposing such vastly different materials and textures in her work, Yanko enables these elements to engage in a complex dance, in a poetic conversation between radical opposites, challenging and expanding our understanding of sculpture. Yanko is eminently interested in the slippage between artistic disciplines and her work seeks to center the seen and unseen factors, the unexplainable and often opposing forces that constitute the human experience.

Gaignard’s recent solo exhibitions include, “A Long Way From Home,” Gallery 51, North Adams, MA;  “Art in Focus: Genevieve Gaignard,” Art Production Fund, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY;  “Bloom Projects: Genevieve Gaignard, Outside Looking In,” Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA (2020); “I’m Sorry I Never Told You That You’re Beautiful,” Vielmetter Los Angeles, CA (2019); “Counterfeit Currency,” FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2018); “Smell the Roses,” California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2016). Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including: The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA; The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Bentonville, AR; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA; Prospect.4, New Orleans. Genevieve Gaignard received her BFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA, and her MFA in Photography from Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Yanko’s recent solo exhibitions include “Post Capitalist Desire,” at Tilton Gallery, New York, NY; “Salient Queens,” Vielmetter Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; “Because it’s in my blood,” Galleria Poggiali, Milan; “Before Words,” Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI; “Hannah,” Kavi Gupta, Chicago, IL; “Highly Worked,” Denny Dimin Gallery, New York, NY. Her public sculpture “3 WAYS,” on the Poydras Corridor in New Orleans in collaboration with The Helis Foundation and the Ogden Museum of Art was installed in 2019. Institutional group exhibitions include “Parallels and Peripheries,” Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI and “Life During WarTime,” University of South Florida, Hillsborough County Florida, FL. Her work is included in the collections of The Bunker Artspace, West Palm Beach, FL; Espacio Tacuari, Buenos Aires, Argentina; The Rubell Museum, Miami. Fl. She is the Rubell Museum of Art’s 2021 artist-in-residence.

For further information and press inquiries, please contact Olivia Gauthier, [email protected]