René Kemp at Zarinbal Khoshbakht, Cologne

René Kemp
Huge if true

September 4 - October 31, 2020

Zarinbal Khosbakht
Albertusstrasse 24
Cologne, Germany

Please find the work list here.














































All images courtesy and copyright of the artist and the gallery.

Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death Art by Philipp Wüschner

In the eccentric 19th century, some English aristocrats let so-called ornamental hermits live in their gardens. In exchange  for  board  and lodging and the promise of eventual pay, they were supposed to perform some form of exotic wisdom, a wisdom which usually had no meaning beyond its representation, as an interaction between guests and hermits was not intended.

A young man, who wishes to retire from the world and live as a hermit, in some convenient spot in England, is willing to engage with any nobleman or gentleman who may be desirous of having one.

Payment was made after the end of the service period, which was set to last up to seven years. Almost 200 years of solitude later, no one is paid anymore, one feeds on yogurt sullied in their lap days ago, and the end of isolation is not in sight. We as a community, or whatever, are faced with a choice that concerns everything symbolic that has lost meaning: to be thrown away or become ornamental. In view of a language that has become reference-less, like an arabesque of razor wire that stakes out sensitivities and identities, and a   morality that has long since crossed the border to the decorative, it is no longer clear what one should decide on this question. And if one should not be    secretly thankful that this choice is no longer a matter of one’s own will, but is decided by the gaze that falls upon you.

A long time ago, according to the late criminal, sectarian and musician Charles Manson, being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody’s crazy. Total paranoia is just total awareness. Perhaps, in this situation of totalised attention, there really is nothing left other than turning the gaze, making observation itself the thing to be observed. The first thing you would notice are the edges that representation has carved into your own life, the impossible hollow patterns, vague angles and frayed corners that assemble a blend of residual existence, which has fallen off during an attempt to produce a straight forward plan for    life. To one’s own surprise, one could realise how unobtrusive material in comparison to ideology, is actually patient, dedicated and somewhat forgiving, and that urbanity’s promise of freedom may just as well begin in the heating pipes of our own residential prisons.

“Only when effectively interrupted,” the media theorist Friedrich Kittler wrote about the Ready-made, “can the absolute determining functionality of the artefacts appear as themselves.” Perhaps this wouldn’t be such a bad promise – the effective interruption of our functionality – that we could meet each other and thereby appear as ourselves. It isn’t very likely, though. However, the young man cited above, who in 1810 offered his services as an ornamental hermit in  the British Courier, founded the hardcore punk band the Dead Kennedys in 1978 and there processed his failed quest for paid self-isolation with the words:

Because your role is planned for you There’s nothing you can do
But stop and think it through

The story is probably not quite right – but what if

René Kemp, born 1982 in Cologne, Germany, studied at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and at the Art Academy Düsseldorf. In 2016 he graduated from the class of Marcel Odenbach whose Meisterschüler he was. In recent years Kemp has presented his works in the solo exhibitions Uncanny Valley, Gemeinde, Cologne (2019), Tondo Soziale, ung5, Cologne, Real Time, Kunstraum Kunze, Gifhorn (both 2018), Oh, What fresh hell is this?, artothek - Raum für junge Kunst, Cologne, und Hysterischer Realismus 1: Papier, Ephemera, Memorabilia, 8Q, Cologne (both 2017), as well as in various group exhibitions. In 2011 he received an honorary award by the Art Foundation of Perdita und Hans-Peter Kunze. In 2017 he was the recipient of the Friedrich-Vordemberge Scholarship for Fine Arts. Kemp has published several artist books as well as his writing. Selected publications include: Thin skinned audiences, Weinspach, Cologne, Dich gibt’s nur dreimal für mich. Aufreibesysteme (Journal), ed. by Marc Degens, Sukultur, Berlin (both 2019), Im Rausch Bist Du Ein Auserwählter, Sprungturm Verlag, Cologne (2012), und Mombasa Betty, Darling II Publications, Cologne (2011).