Adam Pendleton, a New York-based artist, is known for work animated by what the artist calls “Black Dada,” a critical articulation of blackness, abstraction, and the avant-garde. Drawing from an archive of language and images, he makes conceptually rigorous and formally inventive paintings, collages, videos, and installations that insert his work into broader conversations about history and contemporary culture. Pendleton’s multilayered visual and lexical fields often reference artistic and political movements from the 1900s to today, including Dada, Minimalism, the Civil Rights movement, and the visual culture of decolonization.
In his own words:
“Black Dada is an idea. When pressed, I often say it’s a way to talk about the future while talking about the past. It surfaced in a conversational space, when I was just talking to friends. I had Amiri Baraka’s book The Dead Lecturer, which contains the poem “Black Dada Nihilismus.” I found the language striking: “Black Dada.” Just that. The “Black” and the “Dada.” “Black” as a kind of open-ended signifier, anti-representational rather than representational. And then “Dada”—sort of nonsense. A sound, but also referencing a moment in art. So this language became a productive means to think about how the art object can function, and does function, in the world. What can art do?…Not “what is it?” It’s whatever you want it to be, but what can it do?”
Our Ideas showcases the most recent developments in Pendleton’s oeuvre, alongside several pieces from earlier bodies of work the artist has been engaged with for nearly a decade.
| Duration | 02 October 2018 - 09 November 2018 |
| Times | Tues-Sat 10-6 |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | Pace London |
| Address | 5 Hanover Square, London, W1S 1HD |
| Contact | 4402032067600 / londoninfo@pacegallery.com / www.pacegallery.com |