Early Access: Kenny Rivero, Witness Revelator

Early Access: Kenny Rivero, Witness Revelator

EARLY ACCESS: KENNY RIVERO, WITNESS RELEVATOR
Announcing a new limited-edition print benefiting When We All Vote

 
Witness Revelator, 2024
Archival Pigment Print
23.25 x 20 inches

Limited edition of 10
Hand-embellished, signed and numbered by the artist
Limited edition of 20 with 5AP + 1PP
Signed and numbered by the artist
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In Witness Revelator, a figure appears to run or emerge before a concrete brick wall, while a shadowy presence looms behind him. Donning a long, starry cape that drapes over both subjects, this spirit-like character appears to watch or preside over the man in the foreground. Though sparse and non-specific, the setting references both the urban landscape of New York City, as well as Rivero’s familial homeland in the Dominican Republic. Witness Revelator stems from a body of work that recalls a sense of fear—first internalized by the artist as a child growing up in a neighborhood that was disproportionately affected by street violence and the crack epidemic—while also representing the resilience of his cultural community. 

 
Kenny Rivero in his studio for Interview Magazine. Image courtesy of Saam Niami and the artist.

This marks ART FOR CHANGE’s second partnership with When We All Vote, a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase participation in every election and to close the race and age voting gap. In conjunction with the online exhibition, ART FOR CHANGE will donate five percent of the unframed purchase price of sales through December 1st, with a $10,000 minimum commitment, to support When We All Vote’s mission to increase voter participation in this crucial election year.

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Kenny Rivero pictured in his studio.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
 

Kenny Rivero (b. 1981, New York; works in New York. MFA Yale 2012, BFA SVA 2006.) Rivero's work, which spans paintings, collage, drawings, and sculpture, explores the complexity of identity through narrative images, language, and symbolism. His aim is to deconstruct the histories and identities he has been raised to understand as absolute and to re-engineer them into new wholes, with new functions. His creative process allows him to explore what he perceives as the broken narrative of Dominican American identity, socio-geographic solidarity, familial expectations, race, and gender roles. 

Rivero cites the hybrid qualities of salsa, hip-hop, house music, jazz, and merengue-as well as Vodun and Santeria, which were present in his daily life growing up-as core influences on his decision-making in the studio. Kenny Rivero's work is represented in notable public collections including The Baltimore Museum of Art; The Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; El Museo del Barrio, New York. NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Collection of Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; and Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL.

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