100 Drawings
May one see it?
Not receiving at present
London, United Kingdom
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Chris Kenny must be one of the few visual artists to have his work 'performed' on the radio – a reading by the poet Simon Armitage of one of his found text pieces. Already known for his poetry and artist's books, in the 1990s Kenny began to make boxed works using meticulously arranged scraps of text excavated from old books, fragments of old maps, or natural objects such as leaves and twigs.
Read on
Kenny harvests the raw material for his witty twig pieces, which he always calls 'drawings', from one particular bush on Hampstead Heath near Kenwood House. He then 'edits' them by trimming to length, and painstakingly glues each 'drawing' together before arranging them supported on stainless steel pins so that they 'float' in front of the backboard. As he explains, 'There is a resonance in found materials – materials that have a past life – whether they are text in a book, a previous narrative, or part of a living thing such as a plant or a tree. This inherited meaning sits alongside any new meaning brought about by a new context'.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- E.1091-2002
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
