Coby Kennedy
Bio: A Pratt Institute undergraduate and 2011 Skowhegan Fellow, Coby Kennedy has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, and abroad including Japan and Europe. He has received the Civil Society Institute Fellowship and has been showcased and reviewed in publications including The New York Times, Italy’s La Repubblica, Hyperallergic and Japan’s Car Styling Magazine. Kennedy lives and works in New York.
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: In the third millennium, how are we still building empire on the foundation of mythology/theology? How subjective is sanity in a society based on mythic dogma? Being that at any given moment on this planet someone’s apocalypse is occurring, where will the limits of our own humanity lay when the reality we recognize deteriorates?
Juxtaposing the past of Power, Control, and Privilege to its present in order to predict its future, my work deals with often unspoken and unaddressed dynamics of media’s influence on modern social entitlement and problematics of self image. Using the communication tools of advertising and the entertainment industry, my painting, sculpture, and video hint at unspoken truths, the culture of veiled intent, and questions of subjective realities.
Exploring the grey area between Fine Arts and Industrial Design, the work touches on Kurzweilian issues of The Singularity, as well as exploring often overlooked global issues of social class, power, and influence as it exists today, has existed in the past, and as it will exist tomorrow.
L to R: American Virtue, Lobby Card, (13˝× 9˝, C-print, wheat paste, cardboard, 2016); Anti Nigger Machine Instruction Manual, (8.5˝× 15˝× 3˝, Laser print, clipboard, wood stain, Page 7, 2016)