Nailing the political status quo over five decades, from Vietnam to Gaza, with irreducible simplicity, the British artist’s retrospective is also a work in progress…
before a dark sea, its neck rising into a mushroom cloud. Pale vertebrae fuse with the stuttering nuclear uprush. The explosion seems to hold a face. Smoke drifts sideways like ghostly hair. There is much to say about the skill of it, but the point is to go beyond words. You cannot argue with this image.Kennard, at 75, has long since mastered the art of the irrefutable. His montages are not just proverbial but classic.
Look at what he does with a circle: it is planet Earth – a football kicked by a marine, a riot shield, a clock ticking down to catastrophe Everything is anchored in actuality. What you see is constructed directly out of photographs – the fabric of montage – with a brilliant eye for shape and form. Look, for example, at what Kennard does with a circle. It is planet Earth, a football kicked by a US marine, a police officer’s riot shield, a clock ticking down towards environmental catastrophe or the third world war. It is a mouth, a plate, a magnifying glass to enlarge upon the world.
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