Kennedy Yanko

Kennedy Yanko (b. 1988, St. Louis, MO) is a sculptor and installation artist whose works in salvaged metal and paint skin defy the limitations of their respective media. Sourcing junkyard scraps from Brooklyn to Miami, Yanko overlays these crushed metallic frames with lush “skins” which she produces by heaving gallons of latex paint onto her studio floor, letting it harden into a malleable fabric-like shroud. While this draping appears weightless, the process of moulding them into the gestural folds and crevices of their metal bases requires significant strength. This transmutation of material finds root in the artist’s lifelong commitment to Daoist principles, which foreground both a harmonious coexistence with nature and a willingness to see beyond the immediately visible.

In 2026 the artist’s work is included in In Minor Keys, the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (IT); and Ascendancy: The Self in Contemporary Art, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury (CT). In 2025, the artist’s work was included in Epithets, James Cohan Gallery, New York (NY); Retro Future, Salon 94, New York (NY); Without Gravity, Pace Prints, New York (NY); Intimacy of Throes, Art Basel Meridians, Miami Beach (FL); FEMMES, Perrotin, Paris (FR); Drop, Cloth, Susan Inglett Gallery, New York (NY); and The Abstract Future, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (CA). In 2024 the artist’s work was included in Grazing Bodies, CF Hill, Stockholm (SE); In an effort to be held, The Shepherd, Detroit (MI); Stories that need to be told, Firestorm Collection, Stockholm (SE); The Beauty of Diversity, Albertina Museum, Vienna (AT); and Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, which traveled to the Brooklyn Museum (NY); the High Museum, Atlanta (GA); the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (VA); and the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MN). In 2023 Yanko unveiled two public sculpture commissions: Crystallized Tears at Pinnacle Mountain State Park, Little Rock (AR); and Tilted Lift, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (MI). In 2022 her installation No More Drama was part of Brooklyn Abstraction: Four Artists, Four Walls, Brooklyn Museum, New York (NY). In 2021 Yanko was Artist-in-Residence at the Rubell Museum, Miami (FL).

Her work is in numerous public and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York (NY); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (IL); Albertina Museum, Vienna (AT); Brooklyn Museum (NY); Bunker Artspace, West Palm Beach (FL); the Dean Collection, Brooklyn (NY); Firestorm Foundation, Stockholm (SE); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (IL); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MA); the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.; Pérez Art Museum, Miami (FL); Rubell Museum, Miami (FL); Ståhl Collection, Norrköping (SE); and The Norton Museum, West Palm Beach (FL), among others.