Moxyland

KENDRA ADAMS’S SHOW is a sell-out. Her shockingly intimate portraits taken on old photographic stock interplay light and texture like a Dutch Master. The effect of using disintegrating film means the work is inherently flawed, inherently damaged. Her first exhibition has been an unprecedented success, every work snapped up in a bidding scrum that forced the prices up to eight times the sticker. Not bad going for a girl who dropped out of Michaelis Art College six months ago. No insult to the artist or the striking technical mastery demonstrated in Unspoken – a woman’s jawline arching out of shot, delineated against a twist of stair well and the arc of city lights, or the harsh reality of a homeless woman being defused, or the witty statement of Self-Portrait, a 2 x 3.5 m print that is entirely black, but her skill is not the reason her work is suddenly so popular. It’s be cause her photographs are newly flawed that she’s flooring the critics and the art buying public, hungry to claim a whif of scandal, a bloody scrap of current events. Those fourteen portraits all carry the mark of violation from the invasion of Thursday evening, when animal-rights actives hacked apart enfant terrible Khanyi Nkosi’s controversial and grotesque bio mod creature, Woof & Tweet. Nkosi commented:

‘It’s revolting that anyone would try to profit of my loss. This is an atrocity. It’s up there with blood diamonds and wartech corps racking up their cash registers over the stink of corpses!’

Prices for her work have already sky rocketed, especially on her other almost-animals like Sweetheart Sputnik, an oversized heart riddled with receivers, that quickens or slows its rhythm according to incoming text messages from the audience. And the corpse of Woof & Tweet, stinking or not, has already been sold to a Dubai businesswoman, who paid, it’s rumoured, in the region of R1.7 million for the bloody gibs, together with the video footage and one panga that was left behind, unused. The 22 year-old Adams was unavailable for comment, recovering from the fraught of the eve, although her manager-elect, Jonathan Rider, said:

‘We hope to assure Khanyi Nkosi that no one is trying to undermine the agony of what she must be going through. I don’t want to suggest that it’s egotistical to believe that the only reason Kendra’s photographs have sold so well is that they have some residue of blood from her piece’s awful preemptive disassembly, but I believe Ms Nkosi is quite undone by the grief. It’s very unfortunate that she’s demanded a share of the profits on Kendra’s sales, considering her stature internationally in the art world, while Kendra is an aspirant up-and-coming young artist, fresh to the scene. Kendra’s work speaks for itself and it obviously speaks to its audience. And that’s really all there is to it. We’ve also offered to have the prints professionally cleaned and restored, removing any traces of organic matter, for those buyers who request it.’ So far, none have.

It’s enough to spike interest, a calling-card to the world that’s helped drive up a more generous price on the candid interview with Kendra and Damian talking about their all-new injectable tech.

KENDRA ADAMS SOLD out her first exhibition a couple of days ago, but now it seems that she’s sold out in another way entirely, as one of Ghost’s controversial sponsor babies.