Book Launch: Bronwen Buckeridge 'Widowhood' and Dean Kenning 'Vitalist Kinetics'

This event has been rescheduled from 18 September to Friday 30 September, 6:30 to 8:30pm. Join us to celebrate the launch of two publications: Bronwen Buckeridge’s Widowhood and Dean Kenning’s Vitalist Kinetics. Alongside readings from the books Buckeridge will present a field recording from a pigeon loft, while one of Kenning’s Crawlers, a semi-autonomous kinetic work, will prowl the floor of Matt’s Gallery’s Nine Elms space. The books will be available at special launch prices. Taking its name from a racing strategy and Bronwen Buckeridge’s 2018 exhibition at Matt’s Gallery, Widowhood is an artist’s book comprising an extended race report documenting the passage of the pigeons sprinting home from the gallery in London to their lofts scattered around the Kent countryside. In the form of a parallel text, Widowhood tracks the movements of one of the widowed pigeons against the banter of the pigeon men waiting at the lofts for the birds to return. Gathering together images from the marking up and release of the birds on race day, this artist’s book is a poignant exploration of the private act of waiting and a shared narrative of love, loss and longing. Widowhood is designed by the artist and published by Matt’s Gallery. Vitalist Kinetics looks back over two decades of artist Dean Kenning’s kinetic sculptural practice. With images throughout, it traces the journey from the crudely reengineered Man-Machines to the more technologically sophisticated robot Crawlers. Through discussions with contemporary artists Emma Hart and Lindsay Seers, Kenning makes claims for the disreputable genre of kinetic art, proposing a ‘vitalist aesthetics’ of movement which challenges both formalist composition and conceptual ‘cleverness’, whilst seeking to connect us with a feeling for life in all its nervous energy and strangeness. Essays by art theorists John Roberts and Martha Barratt extend the meaning of Kenning’s works into the realms of process philosophy, biosemiotics and techno-critique. Beautifully designed by Emily Benton Book Designs, the book also includes a preface by the artist and an appendix by Robin Klassnik, director of Matt’s Gallery. Vitalist Kinetics is published by Cross Lane Projects Publications on the occasion of Kenning’s Mark Tanner Sculpture Award Exhibition Evolutionary Love.