Pace Gallery present Adam Pendleton: Our Ideas, an exhibition spanning the artist’s practice. The exhibition will be on view from 2 October to 9 November 2018 at 6 Burlington Gardens, London. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition and include essays by Suzanne Hudson and Alec Mapes-Frances, as well as a conversation between Adam Pendleton, Yvonne Rainer, and Adrienne Edwards.

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. Encompassing a full spectrum of mediums, theexhibition will feature four Untitled (A Victim of American Democracy) paintings, one Black Dada painting and drawing, a video work, two grids of works on Mylar (in 36 and 32 parts each), a group of collages, and one Wall Work with several small System of Display works.

In addition to the exhibition at 6 Burlington Gardens, Pendleton will curate Pace’s booth at Frieze Masters 2018, bringing together a selection of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. The presentation, inspired by Rosalind Krauss’ critical writing on Sol LeWitt, explores grids, systems, and subjectivity in works by Charles Gaines, LeWitt, Howardena Pindell, Robert Ryman, and others.

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Pace Gallery
6 Burlington Gardens
London W1S 3ET

www.pacegallery.com