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Hard back booklet with slideshow and interview dvd to accompany the exhibition 'The Tribe that Held the Sky Up' by David Kemp, held at Millennium, St. Ives. (Printed version measures 13 x 14 x 1.5 cm)
Citation preview
DAVID KEMP
THE TR IBE THAT HELD THE SKY UP
The Tribe that Held the Sky Up
There was once a clever tribeWhose knowledge tied the four corners of the world together.
Their sorcerers had many powers.They made great poles that held the sky up.
They had great cunning with fireThey could make the night like day.
They could send pictures in the windTheir long tongues could speak over many miles
Their warriors were fierce and powerful.They rose in the air, over land and sea.
They overcame all the other tribes of the earth.
One day the smoke from their many clevernesses grew thick,Great flames licked up the poles blocking out the sun and burning a hole in the sky.
Slowly, the sky started to fall.Fearing the dreadful weight of the cloudsThe tribe dug deep holes in the ground.Here they hide with all their clever things
Awaiting the day when the sky is pushed back up.
Botallack Birdman
reconstruction : wood, industrial components, found objects
95 x 150 cm
4
5
6
7Skull
reconstruction : auto and electrical components, floats
40 x 35 cm
8Whirlybird
reconstruction : including auto and electrical components, feathers
70 x 70 cm
9
10
11
Lost Head
reconstruction : auto and electrical components, string
40 x 30 cm
12
Lost Leader
reconstruction : auto, motorbike and washing machine components
110 x 80 cm
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14
15
Consumer Boomer
reconstruction : furniture components, ladies purses, feather
55 x 40 cm
16
Sky God
reconstruction : satelite dish, auto and electrical components
55 x 56 cm
17
18
19
Totem
reconstruction : satelite dish, auto components, floats, brushes
100 x 80 cm
20
Ella Gerrill
reconstruction : electrical components, toaster, earphones
38 x 35 cm
21
22
23
Bad Hair Day
reconstruction : wood, hair extensions, hairdryer, hair accessories
60 x 48 cm
24
Digital Guerrilla
reconstruction : electrical components, anatomical model and toys
45 x 32 cm
25
26
27
Holy Spirit
reconstruction : plastic bottle, barbed wire, string
50 x 50 cm
28
Hazard Sisters
reconstruction : plastic bottles, string
50 x 35 cm
29
30
31
Horseman
reconstruction : rubber trug, gas mask, horse jaw bone
60 x 60 cm
32
Knockout Blonde
reconstruction : cows horns, boxing gloves, garden glove, floats, wig
50 x 60 cm
2333
34
Fetish Head
reconstruction: vacuum cleaner, pipes, false teeth, shells
95 x 30 cm
35
Snake-Lipped Handbag Woman
reconstruction: handbags, flowerpot
52 x 30 cm
36
Relic
reconstruction : elecrical components, domestic brassware
80 x 30 cm
37
Electro Princess
reconstruction : elecrical components, domestic brassware
55 x 40 cm
BIOGRAPHY
David Kemp was born in London, upon leaving school he went to sea as a midshipman in the Merchant Navy for four years. After his return he attended Farnham Art School and then Wimbledon School of Art, and moved to West Cornwall in 1975.
For more than 30 years, Kemp has lived and worked on the exposed Atlantic coast of West Cornwall - inspired by the natural landscape and the remains of the tin-mining industry carried out there since medieval times.
Living among the ruins, he collects fragments, piecing together curious connections between past and emergent human mythologies and technologies. His constructions use a variety of materials including timber, steel and bronze, but he is best known for his reconstruction sculpture, which have been compared to the work of archaeologists and ethnologists.
Kemp has exhibited widely including Tate St Ives, Arts Counci l Touring Exhibt ions, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Newlyn Art Gallery, Royal Cornwall Museum, The Royal Albert
Museum in Exeter, Manchester Museum of Modern Art, Plymouth Arts Centre and in many other venues.
Kemps significant output of public art began when he was artist in residence at Grizedale Forest, Cumbria in 1981. Here he learned the important links between site and content, which he has applied to the many large scale, site-specific sculptures he has built around Britain over the past 25 years.
In the 1980s Kemp built a series of large post-industrial sculptures in the North East, such as King Coal on the Durham moors, and in 1987 he built the Navigators, a 60ft high bronze and steel kinetic sculpture at Hays Galleria, near London Bridge on the Southbank. Other commissions include the Ogilvy & Mathers European Headquarters at Canary Wharf and the atrium of Price Waterhouses new head-quarters in Birmingham. Other notable works include The Hampshire Hog at County Hall at the Castle, Winchester and more recently The Murdoch Mosaics a set of five mosaic panels as part of the Redruth Town Regeneration 38
Programme. Kemp has also produced a series of large sculptures for the Eden Project alongide a great many more works nationwide. Kemp has participated in residencies including at Grizedale Forest, Citto Vittoriosa, Malta and has also worked closely with Kneehigh Theatre.
His work is in numerous art collections including Arts Council England, The Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Northern Arts, Manchester City Art Gallery, Glasgow City Art Galleries, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield City Art Gallery, Liverpool Development Corporation, The Forestry Commission, The National Trust and Falmouth Art Gallery among others.
39
Man in the Iron Frock
reconstruction : elecrical components,
bike saddle, tongs, wood
70 cm
Street-an-PolSt . Ives Cornwal l01736 793121mai l@mil lenniumgal lery.co.ukwww.mi l lenniumgal lery.co.uk
M I L L E N N I U M
Published by Millennium to coincide with the exhibition The Tribe that Held the Sky Up by David Kemp
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise
without the prior permission of the publishers
Publication produced by Impact Printing Services (www.impactprintingservices.co.uk)
Interview Film by Alban Roinard and Joseph Clarke
ISBN 978-1-905772-59-9