Jason Kendall: (the) TRANSITIONER: Episode I, Who Do You Love

As part of Dada Days In Columbia, 701 Center for Contemporary Art

presents three nights of performances by Columbia artist Jason Kendall of 

kendallprojects. The performances, (the) TRANSITIONER: Episode I, Who 

Do You Love, will take place Thursday through Saturday, March 3 – 5, 

2016, 7:30 pm. 

Alternating on stage between a cross-fit workout carrying sandbags 

and playing a guitar while singing “Who Do You Love,” Kendall during his 

performance will present a character who is a visual mix of different 

identities contained within one single persona. Kendall deconstructs his 

ever-present fascination with what happens to the American male when the 

masculine identity they have developed and presented throughout their 

lives is suddenly stripped away and thrown into a state of identity transition, 

forcing them to immediately begin negotiating a new identity. Whether they 

are transitioning from being an athlete to a non-athlete, as was the case for 

Kendall, or from being a construction worker to being a disabled employee, 

they unknowingly face a state of flux that causes their personality to fall 

away at the perimeter of a catastrophic experience.

“This character,” Kendall says, “embodies what guides someone 

through the reconciliation of their cycle of conditional self-worth, for 

instance, as in my case, after a sports career. The project reflects how 

people immerse them selves in sub-cultures such as music, competitive 

exercise, comics, video games, etcetera, creating an escape from not 

being the person they feel they should be. They operate within a 

transitional state of identity providing a fantasy world to flee to mentally and 

physically. This type of narrative allows this character to act as a 

fan/cheerleader and active participant within several subcultures while 

offering, in my case, a disconnected southern masculinity caught in a 

sequence between work and play. He works to play and plays to work, 

blending music and physical exhaustion in an effort to entertain both 

himself and the audience.” 

Jason Kendall (b. 1975, Columbia, S.C.) has had solo exhibitions in 

Florida, New York and at the Tapp’s Art Center in Columbia. He was 

selected for the 701 CCA South Carolina Biennial 2015. Among other 

group exhibitions in which he participated were those at Cynthia Broan 

Gallery, Secret Robots Projects and Washington Square Galleries East in 

New York, the Columbia Museum of Art and the Tapp’s Art Center. Kendall 

earned an MFA from New York University and a BFA from Ringling School 

of Arts & Design in Sarasota, Fla., after taking art classes at the University 

of South Carolina and North Greenville (S.C.) College as a member of 

those institutions’ football programs. He worked at Dia Center for the Arts in 

New York and Beacon, N.Y. Kendall taught at New York University and is a 

teacher at the Palmetto Center for the Arts at Richland Northeast High 

School, just outside of Columbia.