Distant Pairs: Devin Kenny & E. Jane - That new new flesh
Thursday, February 17th at 8pm ET, ISSUE & Harvestworks are pleased to stream a new collaboration between interdisciplinary artists Devin Kenny and E. Jane. While both artists are based in New York, Kenny is currently living and working in Berlin. During 2021, Kenny was supported by Harvestworks Technology Immersion Program for artists (TIP), in partnership with ISSUE. Both Kenny & Jane approach work across disciplines including the production of digital images, video, text, performance, installation, and sound design. The duo’s new work will stream on ISSUE’s site.
Oriented towards numerous mediums including sound, painting, video, photography, performance and installation, the work of Devin Kenny holds a funhouse mirror to societal currents, with special attention given to the social ramifications of network culture and analog precedents in the African diaspora. Devin Kenny received a Master of Fine Arts from University of California, Los Angeles, in addition to attending the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. He has participated in residencies at the Rauschenberg Foundation, SOMA Mexico, Core Program in Houston, Storm King and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Kenny has exhibited, performed and lectured across the United States, as well as at galleries and institutions abroad. Select venues include MoMA PS1, New York; the Kitchen, New York; Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf; Performance Space, New York; Tramway, Glasgow; REDCAT, Los Angeles; Queens Museum, Queens; Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara; IMT Gallery, London, UK; and Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland. Instagram : @crashingwavy, his first label release "NY Lottery/CBD Kratom" is out now on PTP.
E. Jane (b. Bethesda, MD) is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. Inspired by Black liberation and womanist praxis, their work incorporates digital images, video, text, performance, sculpture, installation, and sound design. E. Jane’s work explores safety and futurity as it relates to Black femmes, as well as how Black femmes navigate/negotiate space in popular culture and networked media. Since 2015, Jane has been developing the performance persona MHYSA, an underground popstar for the cyber resistance. MHYSA operates in Jane’s Lavendra/Recovery (2015-)--an iterative multimedia installation--and out in the world. Jane considers this project a total work of art--or Gesamtkunstwerk--that honors and examines the life of the Black diva and of Black femmes in popular culture. In 2018, MHYSA followed her critically acclaimed debut, fantasii, with a live EU/US tour. Highlight performances include the ICA and Cafe OTO in London and Rewire in The Hague. Her second album NEVAEH came out in February 2020 on Hyperdub records in London.
E. Jane received their MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 and a BA in Art History with minors in English and Philosophy from Marymount Manhattan College in New York in 2012. E. Jane has also performed at The Kitchen, MoCADA and MoMA PS1 as one-half of the sound-performance duo SCRAAATCH; exhibited their solo work in dozens of international institutions and galleries, from MoMA PS1 and Studio Museum 127 to MCA Chicago and IMT Gallery and Edel Assanti in London; written the widely-circulated NOPE manifesto, recently featured in Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism; won the 2016 Wynn Newhouse Award; and have been a 2019-2020 artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. They are currently a Harvard College Fellow in New Media as a part of SCRAAATCH.
During the Winter, 2022 ISSUE is continuing to commission artists as part of the Distant Pairs series, producing collaborative work at a time when the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has drastically impacted their ability to travel and perform, and altered the nature of collective work and performance. Pairing artists in disparate locations who cannot work together in “traditional” ways, the Distant Pairs series examines the collaborative process, methods of working, and partnership amidst these constrained conditions.
Full Distant Pairs Series Schedule*
Puce Mary & Drew McDowall: Thursday, February 3rd
Michiyo Yagi & Jan Bang: Wednesday, February 9th (Co-presented with AvanTokyo)
Francesco Cavaliere & Tomoko Sauvage: Wednesday, February 16th
Devin Kenny & E. Jane: Thursday, February 17th (Co-presented with Harvestworks)
*All Times 8pm ET
