Kevin Beasley

Kevin Beasley

b. 1985, Lynchburg, Virginia
lives in New York

Kevin Beasley received a BFA from the College for Creative Studies, Detroit (2007), and an MFA from Yale School of Art (2012). Spanning sculpture, photography, sound and performance, the core of Beasley’s practice rests in the synthesis of objects and materials steeped in personal and generational memory. In gathering clothing, objects, sounds, and studio happenings, Beasley generates a material history—one that is altered, molded, cast, and rebuilt. The artist draws from sculptural tradition through a lens of his own physicality, allowing found materials of personal and cultural significance to regenerate, existing simultaneously as they were and as they will become. His work has been exhibited in recent years at The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2018–2019); The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2018); The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2018); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2018); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2017); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2016–17); The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (2016); The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2015); and MoMA PS1, New York (2015). He has held residences at the Studio Museum in Harlem; Rauschenberg Residency, Captiva Island, Florida; Delfina Foundation, London; and A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa.

Installation view: Kevin Beasley, A View of a Landscape: A cotton gin motor, 2012–2018 (Detail) Chamber: GE induction motor, custom soundproof glass chamber, anechoic foam, steel wire, monofilament, cardioid condenser, microphones, contact microphones, microphone stands, microphone cables, AD/DA interface. Listening Room: Custom speaker system, subwoofers, amplifiers, AD/DA interface, ethernet switch, mixer, modular synthesizer, equipment racks, wood table. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, December 15, 2018 - March 10, 2019. ©Kevin Beasley. Image courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Photo by Ron Amstutz