Enough Rope: Nine Minutes with Artist Clare Kenny
From November 23rd, VITRINE, London will be presenting the second solo exhibition of Manchester born, Basel based artist Clare Kenny. Clare Kenny works with a variety of materials such as found objects and building materials, neon and photography where reality and representation are explored.
‘Enough rope to hang ‘emselves’ comes from a larger body of work that will be shown in her hometown, Rochdale, Greater Manchester; in her first solo institutional exhibition in the UK in 2017 at Touchstones. The works in the exhibition at VITRINE and later at Touchstones respond to each space, their individual environments and the artist’s recollections of her home county. Through subtle gestures and assemblages Kenny adapts a story, translating a new narrative, reflecting concerns of the nebulous divide between fact and fiction.
After Nyne's Editor Claire Meadows met with Clare ahead of the show to get the inside view on what we can expect from this unique new show.
Clare, your new body of work is highly personal. Talk us briefly through the show title, and how it relates to the work.
The title comes from a common saying, meaning to leave someone who may be going waywards to their own devices and let them determine the outcome rather than intervening. It's a phase I heard quite often in younger days referring to kids that basically had been given up on, I found it to be a somewhat tragic response to the treatment of essentially what were neglected kids.
How does living in Basel affect the way you relate to your hometown?
Living abroad gives distance and the ability to reflect on past experiences, rather than living it day to day. Because I’m not walking down those streets each day, I access them via my memory, and of course you forget and embellish things. The infallibility of memory is something that plays a stronger part when you’re in another place.
Typically, does the theme, or the idea for the actual work come first for you?
The works are generally process driven. So most materials are examined and experimented with, these materials are often closely related to my life so the two elements both material and memory and combined to create works.
How has the Vitrine space affected the show?
I made this particular arrangement specifically for the space. The works in the exhibition at VITRINE respond to the space, its individual environment and my recollections of my home county. The wallpaper is made to measure for VITRINE’s space, but the other pieces could be re-incorporated into a different space, which would in turn create new narratives. When these works are together in this space they create a particular environment, and when they go on to Touchstones, they will combine with other elements and their new environment to create a different story.
Do working class voices in the arts resonate as deeply as they used to in, say, the 1960s?
There are certainly fewer working class voices in the art world than others. In my experience, art that reflects working class experiences is not so common. The European art world is still very obsessed with art historical references, I think, but I don’t find that so interesting. I don’t necessarily want to have to read a book to understand a work. I find that work which deals with personal experiences is much more relatable, especially to those who don’t necessarily have a background in the arts.
How is the current political climate making you feel about how personal stories are told through art?
I think stories have always been present throughout art history - politics always affects the personal. I don’t particularly feel that artists should change what they are doing in response to the political climate, unless their work is specifically dealing with these topics. Of course, your work is made in its particular climate. I’m not reaching out specifically to respond to a new world order, but my work will inevitably develop in a particular way within this new atmosphere.
How does this work fit into your body of work at large?
This is a direct development of earlier works exploring both materials of poor and high values and similarly thematic deemed uninteresting or unimportant within an art historic framework.
What’s on the cards for you in 2017?
My first institutional solo show opens at touchstones in Rochdale at the beginning of April, under the leadership of a new curator Mark Doyle this will be my largest presentation to date, which I’m very much looking forward to.
Clare Kenny | Enough rope to hang ‘emselves
23 November 2016 - 21 January 2017
VITRINE, London | Bermondsey Square | SE1 3UN |London
