Kennedy Yanko: Before Words

Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts | Grand Rapids, Michigan

Before Words is a body of metal and paint skin work meant to induce new ways of seeing. If we understand our human inclination and tendency to adopt collective viewpoints, then we can more determinedly decide to refute those learned perspectives and develop our own. Abstraction is the intuitive tool that illuminates independent thought. In psychology, it’s considered higher order thinking—and in philosophy, it’s a means of bringing hyper-focus to one aspect of a phenomenon. Here, with Before Words, abstraction is implemented in both of these senses: it posits that sensory experiences constitute this higher order thinking, and it focuses on ambiguity as a means to elicit pure responses.