Jimmy Kuehnle
June-July 2010
St. Louis, MO
Project Description:
During the residency period at Sculpture Space I initiated two projects, an unconventional bicycle and an inflatable suit. The fabrication facilities allowed me to create a Four Person Bicycle out of old bicycles and found steel. With this bicycle I took near daily rides around Utica offering free rides to anyone who accepted the offer. This allowed me to interact with the community.
he main project, sewing an inflatable suit, took place over most of the two-month period. I used nylon fabric to construct a large inflatable suit. My recentwork prior to Sculpture Space involved inflatable suits and public performances. This inflatable project served as a bookend to that body of work and strove to push the limits of the materials and working techniques. The suit is wearable until the wind and weight of the materials pushes it over.
About the Artist:
Jimmy Kuehnle’s recent work features wearable inflatable suits and public performance treks through rural and urban cities. In order to widen the audience beyond the gallery and to continue his mission of connecting with other people, the performances stride a thin line between spectacle and the absurd with the goal of breaking the public out of its repetitive daily cycle of thought patterns. A recent tour took the artist through Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas and Texas. Since the suits do not lend themselves to simple categorization, the viewer’s mind becomes vulnerable and therefore open to new thought patterns and ideas. Kuehnle received an MFA in Sculpture in 2006 from the University of Texas at San Antonio. In 2008 he researched public art and practiced sculpture as a Fulbright Graduate Research Fellow in Japan. In the summer of 2009 he worked in Finland as the resident artist at the Stundars open-air museum. In the fall he served as the Phillip C. Curtis Artist in Residence at Albion College in Albion, Michigan. In May 2010, he exhibited in a survey of international artists in residence at the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro in Milan, Italy.