Simple Functionalism (1981)

For the 1981 exhibition Vocation/Vacation (Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre of Fine Arts, Banff, AB), Kennedy created Simple Functionalism, an installation which turned the viewers attention towards the gallery space itself. 

For this installation, Kennedy had a gallery attendant’s desk altered to comply with the parameters set by the Banff Centre Aesthetics Committee, in their 1980 "Statement of Design Guidelines”, which suggested that plastic laminates should be used over materials which were made to simulate more expensive organic materials. All surfaces of the desk, save one small section which revealed the original surface, was covered with Angola Brown Formica.

Kennedy accompanied this installation with a page of printed matter which stated the alterations he made to the desk as well as the original Statement of Design Guidelines. This sheet lay on the desk which sat in an otherwise empty gallery and acted as a tool to facilitate closer looking at the (otherwise overlooked) gallery space itself. 

In 2008, Simple Functionalism was restaged at the Walter Phillips Gallery for the Banff Centre’s 75th Anniversary.

Simple Functionalism is part of Kennedy's investigations into the art gallery as an entity and the implications of everything that happens there, both their internal and public facing operations. These investigations include works like Revealing Locating (1979), "e" (1980), Recent Plants (1980), David Bellman Gallery Work: View from the Gallery Window (1981) and later works like CORRECTIONS (2012).