I DON'T WANT TO PAY THE FULL PRICE (2008)

This exhibition pamphlet, I DON'T WANT TO PAY THE FULL PRICE, accompanied Garry Neill Kennedy's 2008 exhibition at Pickled Arts Centre in Beijing, China. This pamphlet includes pictures of his floor to celling wall-text painting and installation at Pickled Art, we well as texts by both writer Stephen Horne and Kennedy himself who writes: 

"The text, 'I don't want to pay the full price' is taken from The Lonely Planet Phrasebook — Mandarin (2006). The phrase is also spelled out in Chinese characters which literally translated mean "Please give me a discount.' The Lonely Planet Phrasebook is intended to be helpful to English speaking persons who do not speak Chinese. 

I have painted the English phrase throughout the room in my variation of the type font Superstar Shadow. The source of my colour selection is the ubiquitous satin 'event' banners of blue, green, pink, yellow and red that often line the streets of Beijing. One frequently sees them flapping in the wind, on short poles affixed to the top of construction hoarding or tied to tree trunks in front of a new development or renovation project. There seems to be more reason for their prevalence this year, 2008, because of the Beijing Olympics. On top of the English text, I have painted in white the seven Chinese characters that say, 'Please give me a discount'. I have also included a sculptural element in the installation by positioning five of the actual banners in a row along the centerline of the gallery floor. 

Like many of my works 'I Don't Want to Pay the Full Price' is open-ended and remains without explanation. It developed from the installation I did last year at the Pickled Arts Centre entitled, 'The Eight Banners: A Chinese History Painting' — a room painting in bright reds, yellows, blues and white. That work recalled the banner system introduced by the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to structure their control of China both administratively and militarily. This year's work focuses on the current dynamic economic intertwining of China and the West that grew out of China's 'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics' and Western free-market capitalism." 

-Garry Neill Kennedy, I DON'T WANT TO PAY THE FULL PRICE exhibition pamphlet