DAVID KEMP

THE TR IBE THAT HELD THE SKY UP

The Tribe that Held the Sky Up

There was once a clever tribeWhose knowledge tied the four corners of the world together.

Their sorcerers had many powers.They made great poles that held the sky up.

They had great cunning with fireThey could make the night like day.

They could send pictures in the windTheir long tongues could speak over many miles

Their warriors were fierce and powerful.They rose in the air, over land and sea.

They overcame all the other tribes of the earth.

One day the smoke from their many clevernesses grew thick,Great flames licked up the poles blocking out the sun and burning a hole in the sky.

Slowly, the sky started to fall.Fearing the dreadful weight of the cloudsThe tribe dug deep holes in the ground.Here they hide with all their clever things

Awaiting the day when the sky is pushed back up.

Botallack Birdman

reconstruction : wood, industrial components, found objects

95 x 150 cm

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5

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7Skull

reconstruction : auto and electrical components, floats

40 x 35 cm

8Whirlybird

reconstruction : including auto and electrical components, feathers

70 x 70 cm

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10

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Lost Head

reconstruction : auto and electrical components, string

40 x 30 cm

12

Lost Leader

reconstruction : auto, motorbike and washing machine components

110 x 80 cm

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Consumer Boomer

reconstruction : furniture components, ladies purses, feather

55 x 40 cm

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Sky God

reconstruction : satelite dish, auto and electrical components

55 x 56 cm

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Totem

reconstruction : satelite dish, auto components, floats, brushes

100 x 80 cm

20

Ella Gerrill

reconstruction : electrical components, toaster, earphones

38 x 35 cm

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Bad Hair Day

reconstruction : wood, hair extensions, hairdryer, hair accessories

60 x 48 cm

24

Digital Guerrilla

reconstruction : electrical components, anatomical model and toys

45 x 32 cm

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26

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Holy Spirit

reconstruction : plastic bottle, barbed wire, string

50 x 50 cm

28

Hazard Sisters

reconstruction : plastic bottles, string

50 x 35 cm

29

30

31

Horseman

reconstruction : rubber trug, gas mask, horse jaw bone

60 x 60 cm

32

Knockout Blonde

reconstruction : cows horns, boxing gloves, garden glove, floats, wig

50 x 60 cm

2333

34

Fetish Head

reconstruction: vacuum cleaner, pipes, false teeth, shells

95 x 30 cm

35

Snake-Lipped Handbag Woman

reconstruction: handbags, flowerpot

52 x 30 cm

36

Relic

reconstruction : elecrical components, domestic brassware

80 x 30 cm

37

Electro Princess

reconstruction : elecrical components, domestic brassware

55 x 40 cm

BIOGRAPHY

David Kemp was born in London, upon leaving school he went to sea as a midshipman in the Merchant Navy for four years. After his return he attended Farnham Art School and then Wimbledon School of Art, and moved to West Cornwall in 1975.

For more than 30 years, Kemp has lived and worked on the exposed Atlantic coast of West Cornwall - inspired by the natural landscape and the remains of the tin-mining industry carried out there since medieval times.

Living among the ruins, he collects fragments, piecing together curious connections between past and emergent human mythologies and technologies. His constructions use a variety of materials including timber, steel and bronze, but he is best known for his reconstruction sculpture, which have been compared to the work of archaeologists and ethnologists.

Kemp has exhibited widely including Tate St Ives, Arts Counci l Touring Exhibt ions, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Newlyn Art Gallery, Royal Cornwall Museum, The Royal Albert

Museum in Exeter, Manchester Museum of Modern Art, Plymouth Arts Centre and in many other venues.

Kemps significant output of public art began when he was artist in residence at Grizedale Forest, Cumbria in 1981. Here he learned the important links between site and content, which he has applied to the many large scale, site-specific sculptures he has built around Britain over the past 25 years.

In the 1980s Kemp built a series of large post-industrial sculptures in the North East, such as King Coal on the Durham moors, and in 1987 he built the Navigators, a 60ft high bronze and steel kinetic sculpture at Hays Galleria, near London Bridge on the Southbank. Other commissions include the Ogilvy & Mathers European Headquarters at Canary Wharf and the atrium of Price Waterhouses new head-quarters in Birmingham. Other notable works include The Hampshire Hog at County Hall at the Castle, Winchester and more recently The Murdoch Mosaics a set of five mosaic panels as part of the Redruth Town Regeneration 38

Programme. Kemp has also produced a series of large sculptures for the Eden Project alongide a great many more works nationwide. Kemp has participated in residencies including at Grizedale Forest, Citto Vittoriosa, Malta and has also worked closely with Kneehigh Theatre.

His work is in numerous art collections including Arts Council England, The Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Northern Arts, Manchester City Art Gallery, Glasgow City Art Galleries, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield City Art Gallery, Liverpool Development Corporation, The Forestry Commission, The National Trust and Falmouth Art Gallery among others.

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Man in the Iron Frock

reconstruction : elecrical components,

bike saddle, tongs, wood

70 cm

Street-an-PolSt . Ives Cornwal l01736 793121mai l@mil lenniumgal lery.co.ukwww.mi l lenniumgal lery.co.uk

M I L L E N N I U M

Published by Millennium to coincide with the exhibition The Tribe that Held the Sky Up by David Kemp

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or

transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise

without the prior permission of the publishers

Publication produced by Impact Printing Services (www.impactprintingservices.co.uk)

Interview Film by Alban Roinard and Joseph Clarke

ISBN 978-1-905772-59-9