How Kendalle Getty’s upbringing informed her disturbing art

Making art – alongside all the deep reading and thinking that inform the conception of her work – is a “coping mechanism” for multidisciplinary artist, Kendalle Getty. “I experienced a lot of gaslighting as a child, it has made my relationship to reality a bit skittish,” she explains, talking over Zoom from the studio on the grounds of her Hollywood mansion. “I’m always curious where the line is between reality and perception, and what inspires me as an artist is externalising these fears. I treat it as somewhere between an exorcism and alchemy. If I can just get it out of me and out there, perhaps I can transmute this shit into gold.” This sense of reckoning with her complicated past – which reads like the plot of a modern classic American novel –  is the eminent force permeating her mordant, enthralling artworks.

One of the most famous and, historically, richest dynasties in America, the Getty family is mired in intrigue and synonymous with a host of associations – some positive, some negative, but never boring. Every day on her way to school in Los Angeles, Kendalle would pass the Getty Villa –  the palatial classical-style edifice built by notorious oil tycoon J Paul Getty to house his collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan treasures. When she was 12 years old, Kendalle discovered from a news report that she and her sisters were part of the Getty dynasty and that her mother, Cynthia Beck, was the mistress of Gordon Getty, heir to the empire. She recalls, “There was a lot of gossip about me, I began to learn things about my paternal family from people I didn’t really know... and that my very existence was so controversial and hurt people; hurt an entire family.”

While the revelation bestowed a new species of privilege upon her and connected her to a host of new unknown relations (including her niece, socialite Ivy Getty), Kendalle is more than aware of the precariousness of her own position. “To be a bastard Getty is very different from being another kind of Getty,” she explains, vigilant of the ways in which this revelation has proved to be both a blessing and a curse: “We’re a very clever bunch of mavericks and artists and we want to do better by the world. However, the original source of privilege is a dark, dark past that we have to contend with, even to this day.”

As part of her expansive creative practice as an artist, Kendalle produces short films (including a music video with Glume and Sean Ono) and writes poetry and is a member of the performance group Poetry Brothel. Below, we chat with the interdisciplinary artist about her upcoming exhibition Hostile Home, the legacy of her dramatic youth, and her desire to make “radical, vulnerable” artworks.

Please can you begin by introducing us to Hostile Home?

Kendalle Getty: Hostile Home is a conceptual, emotional and somewhat abstract recreation of the home that I grew up in, so it has a lot to do with living in a place where you cannot get your needs met. However, at the same time, I do come from some privilege, so these objects are opulent. They mimic objects that provide comfort however, they don’t provide that.

So they merely signify comfort without embodying it? 

Kendalle Getty: That’s right. I’m interested in semiotics. So a big part of this, for me, is disrupting the visual literacy of what a chair is supposed to look like. I believe it was Sartre who said that when you close your eyes and hear the word ‘chair’, you have in your mind a picture of a chair. And theoretically, from the time we were old enough to develop and retain language, we begin to supplant our experiences with images. So, for instance, I’ve created a couple of chairs. They look like chairs, sort of, but they're completely covered in crystals. Looking at them, you know that you couldn’t get your needs met sitting on this chair. It both is and is not a chair. 

They were also inspired by Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. I just loved the idea that this woman felt things so deeply that, the moment her heart broke, she stopped all the clocks never changed her clothes again, and let all the food rot on the table. It was inspired by that, but it also has a vibe as though these things have been pulled from the Titanic.

“I can’t stare down the barrel of eternity and see the rest of my life, there’s nothing worse for me” – Kendalle Getty

You work across a number of different forms, including poetry and music, as well as sculpture. What mediums are you what are you most drawn to?

Kendalle Getty: That definitely depends on what’s going on inside my head. I just intrinsically know what medium to use for what concept and I go through phases… like I’ve definitely been in a sculpture phase lately. But then I go through collage phases, I go through poetry phases, I went through music phase as well, which I’m hoping will come back.

I’m not sure if this is because I’ve got ADHD, or perhaps there’s more to being a Libra than we sometimes give credit for in a world of science, but I need a lot of variety to be happy. I can’t stare down the barrel of eternity and see the rest of my life, there’s nothing worse for me.

So you're not married to a particular medium, it’s more about what you want to convey and which medium would suit that most?

Kendalle Getty: Yes. That said, when it comes to visual art, I do have this belief that sculpture is most radical because painting is much more marketable. Luckily, because I am so privileged, I don’t have to be driven by marketability, I get to create what I think the world needs, rather than what I think will sell. And I think what the world needs is sculpture that gets taken to an extreme, the way that Pollock took painting to an extreme. I’m exploiting the medium for what it is, and I feel that these pieces [from Hostile Home] are obstructive in a way that one can’t ignore – they force an encounter between object and viewer, I hope.

You mentioned your own home life growing up and how it didn’t meet your emotional needs. I wonder if you would be comfortable giving some context by sharing a bit about your background?

Kendalle Getty: As a tiny one, I seldom saw my dad. When he did come to visit, it was the best. He was this boisterous, funny man, full of energy, who would swing me around by my feet and say, ‘Well, hello, little upside-down girl.’ And this was my favourite game. He would take us to Disneyland, he was so good to us. But I didn’t understand exactly who he was in terms of his legal name and it took me a while to put it together.

All the other kids at school lived with their parents, except for the ones who came from divorced homes, so I assumed my parents were divorced. A couple of years later, I found out through the news that my sisters and I were Gettys. I didn’t fully grasp what this meant except that, back then, every day we would pass by the Getty Villa on our way to school. And that clicked. And when I got to school that day, things changed. There was a lot of gossip about me, I began to learn things about my paternal family from people I didn’t really know. 

I was invited to visit my dad at his house for the first time when I was 12 and I remember having my first panic attack… seeing the walls were lined with photos of him getting married to his wife and realising his wife was not my mother, that he was still married to his wife, and that my very existence was so controversial and hurt people; hurt an entire family. At least that was what I took away at the time, because I was young and anxious and new to all this. Of course, it opened doors for me, but in the weirdest way.

That must have given you a very different perspective from some of your paternal family members.

Kendalle Getty: To be a bastard Getty is very different from being another kind of Getty, especially to be born to someone’s mistress. I feel differently from my other family members and I have to fight a little higher and harder for the same rights of the same recognition sometimes. But I consider this a blessing because it’s kept me humble. I have this thing that I can see and almost touch but it’s not mine. And I have a foot in two different worlds, the world of my mother where my needs weren’t met, we were neglected, I lived in fear. And the world of my father where, if I was sick, the doctor was called and people heard me and wanted to learn about me.

I would say, honestly, that the Gettys are really good people, they’ve got pretty good heads on their shoulders. But I would also say that to smack one’s head against the ceiling of one’s privilege is a necessary experience for a truly huge heart. And a necessary experience for making vulnerable radical artwork. Yeah. There’s plenty of artwork that’s good, but not vulnerable.  It’s just not what I’m interested in doing with my time on Earth.

“To be a bastard Getty is very different from being another kind of Getty” – Kendalle Getty

In what tangible ways do you think these experiences, which are so unusual, have manifested themselves in your work?

Kendalle Getty: The trauma of finding out that I was a Getty through the news and having my name changed without my consent and my whole life and turning it upside down is what drew me so much to semiotics.

The study of semiotics has a huge influence on my work. And I also experienced what [semiotition and psychoanalyst] Julia Kristeva called a ‘state of abjection or rejection of the self’, where the pendulum swung the other way. I went full punk rock, I went by the name Kendalle Fiasco, I had a little zine for my high school friends and started reading anarchist theory. I was abjecting myself.

These concepts are very much present in my work now. I mean, I’m disrupting assumptions of visual literacy with these crystal chairs. I’ve got this terrifying sculpture of my mother as a manticore, which also has to do with the state of objection. However, I like to keep things nuanced – so something’s not just scary, it’s also beautiful. Or it’s menacing and protecting – with little details that, to the curious viewer, will stick out.

I experienced a lot of gaslighting as a child, it has really made my relationship to reality a bit skittish. I’m always curious where the line is between reality and projection; reality and perception. And what inspires me as an artist is absolutely externalising these fears. I treat it as somewhere between an exorcism and alchemy. If I can just get it out of me and out there, perhaps I can transmute this shit into gold.

It sounds like your life was capsized by these revelations but that – in making sense of these events – you’ve made sense of so much more…

Kendalle Getty: I think you’re right, although it felt very much destined for me to come across these pieces of theory. I developed a love of reading and philosophy very young. In high school and when I went to art school at NYU, a lot of these pieces of theory were assigned to me, and they just resonated. I think also, delving deeply into dense literature was one of my coping mechanisms. It’s a sort of emotional regulation that forces you out of emotion and into the rational mind, you can sort of drop your wounds and focus on a concept.

Does being more analytical enable you to divide the heart from the head? And do you feel this trickles through into your practice?

Kendalle Getty: I'm not sure I’d say ‘dividing’, but certainly untangling. Art is the place where I’m aware of my emotions and approach them from a conceptual place. 

For news of Kendalle Getty’s upcoming work, including news of Hostile Home, visit her website and follow her on Instagram.