I swear to tell

THE HOLE TRUTH

a solo exhibition by BRIAN KENNY

envoy enterprises

131 Chrystie St, NYC

20 June - 22 July 2012. Wed-Sun. 12 - 6

Opening Reception Wednesday June 20 6-8 pm

Here been soft

alONE born

tap tap tap

Caught red handed

Bare bones

Face HERe!

Cross the on fire line

How we reinvent the trophy

That’s how we roll

Rain again fallen stars

Lets not fight out of order

The hole truth

Sewn together

Fingers for the people of fate

Sage race

Time walk

Rest in hide and seek peace

Under the totally honest influence

Held no further questions hostage

Brian I rest my case Kenny 2012

envoy enterprises is pleased to present The Hole Truth, our first solo exhibition with New York based artist Brian Kenny.

Working with fabric for the first time, Kenny learned how to sew to construct a series of iconic objects – altered and reconfigured US flags, reflecting on what it means to be a disaffected gay American in the age of Occupy, the issues of social inequality and injustice. Devalued and depraved symbols, fallen or removed stars and stripes, the distortion and disfiguration evoke feelings of this discontent.

Mastering his primary medium of free-associative drawing, Kenny also created a series of large scale drawings on vintage police shooting targets – obsessive and intricate compositions depicting personal fantasies, fears and fetishes, as well as esoteric symbols and hand signs borrowed from sign language and urban subcultures. This new body of work serves as both artist’s intimate diary and passionate commentary on gender and sexuality, religion and guilt, finding inspiration in chaos while fighting the demons within – The Hole Truth and nothing but the truth.

Brian Kenny is a New York based American artist. Born 1982, in Heidelburg, Germany. He works across drawing, painting, sculpture, text, sound, video, and blogging. In 2004, Brian and his partner Slava Mogutin formed SUPERM, an ongoing collaborative art project.

 

Sewn Together (2012)

ink, acrylic and thread on vintage American police shooting target paper

22.5 x 34 inches

AMERICAN SUPERM

new SUPERM polaroids

film provided by Impossible
featuring my new flags..

East Village Boys presents "For Personal Use @ Impossible Project

SUPERM (Slava Mogutin & Brian Kenny) 2012

East Village Boys presents:

 FOR PERSONAL USE

June 5-15, 2012

The Impossible Project Space

425 Broadway, 5th Floor, NYC

 Once upon a time horny boys, pornography dilettantes, sneaky voyeurs and slutty exhibitionists, the curious and the depraved, and queers of all types were confined to instant photography to document their private activities and tastes in all things a little less than appropriate. As a part of the Queer New York International Arts Festival, the infamous East Village Boys are bringing together their favorite artists to create work on instant analog film for a new exhibition. “For Personal Use” celebrates New York City’s historical queer community through controversial and thought provoking imagery. -EVB


ARTISTS:

Mx Justin Vivian Bond

Jeff Hahn

Josh McNey

 

Christian Schoeler

Andrew Yang

Jayson Keeling

SUPERM (Slava Mogutin & Brian Kenny)

EAST VILLAGE BOYS

IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT

The Death Moon of Arthur RImbaud

 

-from TM and Liam Davy's gathering on the  11-10-11 to celebrate the full moon and the 120 year anniversary of Arthuir Rimbaud's death. Of course, the spirit of David Wojnarowicz was also in attendance.

My portraits in Slava's new show!

Sticks & Stoned

slava mogutin's

AS IF Gallery

June 4 - 25, 2011

Opening: Saturday, June 4th, 3-6 PM

 each day we would carve each day like a piece of vulture
as a trail of days like an overlay brunette sculpture
until suddenly last summer is that penned
using people and maybe that's not contend
not being able to use people to borrow
suddenly peaceful after all that taboo tomorrow
those nightmares just to be able to tame
their eyes to a sky not black with savage shame

Slava Mogutin, After Tennessee Williams, 2011

Cone Face

In his latest NY solo exhibition at AS IF gallery in Harlem, Slava is presenting his beautiful new series entitled Suddenly Last Summer.

Curated by Diego Cortez, this show features large-scale prints and a limited edition box set of 25 prints, 5" x 5" each, edition of 25 copies.

Above and below are the portraits from this series that Slava suddenly took of me last summer. Enjoy!

Sunny Garden

Showerhead

Spinario

Rock Bottom

Hand Stand

Sunny Side

Stone Face

In Slava Mogutin's Suddenly Last Summer, 25 photographic images of male subjects are set in traces of blurred summer color. They are taken with a Holga camera, whose plastic lens delivers the type of experimental accidents for which Jack Smith and Stan Brakhage strove. The resulting light-leaks and double-exposures allow Mogutin a new impressionist vision where a rich and refracted spectrum is layered into the penetrating light of day.

These images are not erotic per se but emotional – an expression of love's natural freedom as opposed to repression's unnatural grip. In perfect contrast to Sebastian's horrifying noonday martyrdom in Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer, Mogutin's subjects live and perform in the open, in brilliant air, in full color and natural light.

Slava Mogutin's luminous pictures celebrate a polychrome Eden that has actually, largely arrived.

Diego Cortez

Sky High

AS IF

Trash Talker

Whose name?  OBAMA or OSAMA?

Mass Transit Social Consciousness

I have always been interested in how people anonymously alter faces or leave comments on those giant ads in the subway, so I've finally begun to document them when I pass by a good one. This post marks the first in an ongoing series. I think they say a lot about our collective struggles, desires and awareness:

 

1.1 1

 My January photo-journal:

Part 1-11

The Street is Where its Art:

Tree outside my window

Hudson & Grove st

Kenny Scharf retouching his beautiful mural on Houston/Bowery. More photos by Slava here

Soho street

9th ave, near 14th st (Meat-packing)

Rockafeller Center

My street in the West Village

Face it

New York Face to Face Exchange

A look at what I've been face to facing lately:

Face facts:
a Mola stitching from Panema
Part of Kenny Scharf's new mural at B.E.S.
A boys heads at John McWhinnie at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller
old Barney Stuffed animal on St. Marks st.
Theodora wearing glasses by Item Idem
JFK portrait by Hudson NY artist
antique Scottish doll
Angelina Jolie in the subway
DUC mag wheatpaste poster outside of The New Museum by Fixx Invictus
Buddha