Kendell Geers' Cannibalistic Appropriation at Galerie Yvon Lambert

Kendell Geers' exhibition 'Kannibale' at Galerie Yvon Lambert in Paris (October 18 to December 8, 2007) explores the appropriation of images, codes, and vocabulary in a globalized art world. The show features a neon spiral asking 'What do you believe in?' and includes recognizable images such as a Matisse cut-out, Munch's The Scream, May 1968 posters, and the Playboy bunny, multiplied on backgrounds with words like 'Fuck' and 'Scared/Sacred.' Geers employs cut-up techniques reminiscent of Burroughs and Gysin, arguing that artists have become consumers rather than producers. The work H.E.X. (2007) consists of sixty police batons arranged in a six-pointed star, recalling a piece by Kader Attia. Geers suggests that many young artists read the same art magazines and thus arrive at similar conclusions, creating a shared vocabulary and contaminating each other's work like a virus. He appropriates imagery from the collective unconscious—works consumed by museums—acting as a cannibal. The exhibition references his personal history, including Guy Debord, the death of Marcel Duchamp, and the end of Apartheid. The title 'Kannibale' raises questions about the flow of information and the history of colonization, as seen in a version of the Winged Victory of Samothrace covered with 'Fuck' and renamed 'Cadavre exquis.'