NEW!, East Cordova at Hawkes Avenue billboard detail, Endlessly Traversed Landscapes public postering project for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Vancouver, 2010.
Two New Wars, exhibition detail, wall painting installation, The North End and Two New Wars exhibition, Emerson Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2006.
NEW!, canvas detail, latex house paint on 12" x 16" canvas, edition of 5,The North End and Two New Wars exhibition, Emerson Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2006. Photo: Emerson Gallery
Two New Wars medal ribbon and NEW! painting inspiration material detail, 2006.
NEW!, canvas detail, latex house paint on 12" x 16" canvas, edition of 5, for The North End and Two New Wars exhibition, Emerson Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2006. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
NEW!, detail, wall-text painting in Giving Notice: Words on Walls, Dalhousie Art Gallery (DAG), Halifax, NS, 2010. Photo: DAG
NEW!, mid-installation detail, wall-text painting in Giving Notice: Words on Walls, Dalhousie Art Gallery (DAG), Halifax, NS, 2010. Photo: DAG
NEW!, East Cordova at Hawkes Avenue billboard detail, Endlessly Traversed Landscapes public postering project for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Vancouver, 2010.
NEW! (2006)
NEW! began as an edition of eight oval canvases made for The North End and Two New Wars (Emerson Gallery, Berlin, 2006), a joint exhibition with Cathy Busby. For this work, Kennedy painted each canvas red then contracted a sign painter to paint the lettering. For this exhibition, a selection of these editions—done in two sizes (12"x16" and 6"x8")—were hung on top of Two New Wars, Kennedy's wall painting of American and British military service medal ribbons. Each NEW! canvas was hung in an orientation which mimicked promotional materials used in Campaign Medal sales catalogues.
In 2010, Kennedy revisited NEW! for the exhibition Giving Notice: Words on Walls (Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax). Here, he created a large scale wall-text painting of the ovular work which was exhibited alongside his piece Redacted (The Colvin Memos), a large scale version of an email memo written by Canadian Diplomat Richard Colvin which reportedly exposed the torture of Afghan detainees.
Later the same year, NEW! was re-articulated as a billboard for Endlessly Traversed Landscapes, a public postering project curated by Natalie Doonan and funded by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic Games.