Art + Culture Diaries: Kendell Carter

The first thing I think of when looking at Kendell Carter’s work is: FUN, with a refined touch. Something that maybe a lyrically dapper rapper like Slick Rick, from back in the day, might conjure up as a visual art aesthetic. Clean simple and straight to the point, yet clearly sophisticated in its delivery. Carter’s work is both a respectable nod to fun, one of the quintessential original elements of hip-hop culture, and a graceful rendition of a high art vibration choreographed with around the way materials. Most interesting is Carter’s sublime positioning of himself, through his artwork, as an intellectual heir to the hip-hop canon.

(Images left to right: Kendell Carter, Tradizzle Chairs (black Gucci), 2006,  re-upholstered Louis XIV armchairs: ripstop nylon and wood . Kendell Carter,  Kangol Lamps, 2006, Kangol hats, half-chrome light bulbs, light fixtures and metal bowls. Images courtesy the artist and moniquemeloche, Chicago.)

His work is probably accessible to most people through sound bites that include words like, “bling”, “ghetto” and “hip-hop”. Or even through an internal struggle over whether to love or hate a movement that has permeated global pop culture. But, for anyone to be so creative in their expression of an art form in a context outside of that art forms spiritual home, suggests a much deeper motivation and message. To this end, the works somewhat abstract and object oriented nature is less of a comment on hip-hop culture and more of an ode to it.

(Image: Kendell Carter, Cultural Construct Experiment (Black), installation view at Mark Moore Gallery, 2007.)

Carter’s play on notions of high art and low art, decorative arts and ghetto aesthetics, is read most easily as a postmodern dance, but for those tuned to the spaces between the notes his work gives honor to a classic American art form, hip-hop, that has now become kitsch rap. (Similar to smooth jazz – easy on the intellect, comforting in its familiarity - in comparison to a classic Coltrane cut - soulful, innovative, transcendental.) Through sculpture, installation, painting and mixed media, Carter’s art speaks to a discourse on form, substance and language that can happen within and across multiple layers of culture. Elegantly tiered Kangol and wave cap hanging lamps re-purpose aesthetic and process oriented artifacts of hip hop style. Head gear that once perched atop the sacred mind of many an MC, and bubble jackets and hoodies that styled and protected the body, now lay back and chill in both contemporary and historical space. Letting all who enter know the art form known as hip-hop is far more than meets the eye.

(Image: Kendell Carter, #1 (I love you) from the Series Sweet Things, 2007, graphite on paper doily. Courtesy the artist and moniquemeloche, Chicago.)

Kendell Carter lives and works in Long Beach, CA and is represented by moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL.