kennardphillipps brings ‘Everything Must Go’ to Bristol

Everything Must Go - Vangard Street Art and Ke

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kennardphillipps brings ‘Everything Must Go’ to Bristol

Everything Must Go (2021) is an ambitious outdoor installation by the art/activist duo Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps known collectively as kennardphillipps. The work comprises three billboards plus a 3D element.

Two boards are standard 48 sheets. The first has the word ‘EVERYTHING’ together with an image of our extraordinary planet seen from space shadowed by an earth that appears spectral and burnt out. The second billboard carries the word ‘MUST’ above a scrambled melee of brand logos. The third appears to have been disturbingly upended such that one corner rests on the ground. This tilted board is all black with only the word ‘GO’ lopsidedly veering across it. Beneath it, as if having fallen off the advertising surface and trailing across land adjacent to the display site, is an assortment of consumer goods and domestic waste.

Asked what their aim was kennardphillipps said, “We wanted to take a swipe at the relentless calls to gorge on consumer products that bombard us every waking minute. And to do it on actual billboards that envelope our social space with their invocations to Buy! Buy! Buy!”

Everything Must Go is presented in association with Vanguard Street Art – a collective of artists and specialists involved in the global street art movement – who are staging a hugely impressive exhibition together with Bristol Museums at the M Shed exploring the instrumental role of local creatives in the development of British street art from the 1980s to the present day.

24.06.21

Words by Adrian Burnham

As with much of kennardphillipps’ work, on one level Everything Must Go is as clear and blunt a message as possible. Our precious and fragile planet is swamped with transnational logos representing the blight of rapacious mass consumption. The products that we would usually see appearing on roadside advertising sites have been unceremoniously ditched off their hoarding and lay in a heap.

The phrase ‘Everything Must Go’ is one we usually see in the windows of failing commercial enterprises. It’s a ‘last hurrah’, one final chance to grab a bargain before this or that venture goes under. In the context of global consumer culture and the deleterious effects it’s having on our planet the phrase is much more chilling, ‘Everything Must Go’ sirens our extinction.

“We protest the corporations demand of EVERYTHING MUST GO as they produce more and more stuff, meaning more and more waste. We say EVERYTHING WILL GO unless we stop them. This solitary planet is all we have.”

The question left begging is why collectively we seem so hell bent on hastening its demise? Installation of this latest work by kennardphillipps coincides with the 47th G7 summit in Cornwall while the UK holds its presidency. Boris Johnson’s claim to ‘unite leading democracies to help the world fight and then build back better from coronavirus and create a greener more prosperous future’ doesn’t seem plausible. The man is a proven liar and serial cheat.

kennardphillipps’ Everything Must Go is a stark reminder that it’s time up for empty bluster. Without an urgent and concerted global effort to put the earth on a more sustainable footing we’re all goners.

Vangard Street Art and kennardphillipps acknowledge the collaborative support of JACK ARTS in the production and installation of this work.

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