Adam Pendleton’s work is a reflection of how we increasingly move through and experience the world on a sensorial level—a form of abstraction that, in its painterly, psychic, and verbal expression, announces a new mode of visual composition for the twenty-first century. It investigates Blackness as a color, an identity, a method, and a political subject—in short, as a multitude. His work also poses questions about the legacy of modernism in the present day, reactivating ideas from historic avant-gardes across mediums and moments in time. Since 2008 he has articulated much of his work through the frame of Black Dada, an evolving inquiry into the relationships between Blackness, abstraction, and the avant-garde. It’s a visual philosophy that confounds the distinctions between legibility and abstraction, past and present, familiar and strange, reminding us that meaning always develops through difference.
This philosophy extends to Pendleton’s solo exhibitions. He approaches each space not just as a container for his work, but as a literalization of it. His painted compositions inspire a structural intervention that physically implicates us, rearranging our perceptions and encouraging us to approach the work on our own terms. A similar phenomenon is at play in the works themselves. Each painting, drawing, sculpture, or film is a visual chorus of excited multiplicities. When these works come together in an exhibition, their polyphonic structure becomes both audible and visible.
Untitled (WE ARE NOT)
2021
Silkscreen ink on canvas
305 x 366 cm / 120 x 144 in
© Adam Pendleton
Untitled (WE ARE NOT)
2020–2021
Silkscreen ink on canvas
244 x 305 cm / 96 x 120 in
© Adam Pendleton
Untitled (WE ARE NOT)
2020
Silkscreen ink on canvas
244 x 175.5 cm / 96 × 69 in
© Adam Pendleton
Untitled (WE ARE NOT)
2019
Silkscreen ink on canvas
244 x 305 cm / 96 x 120 in
© Adam Pendleton
Untitled (WE ARE NOT)
2019
Silkscreen ink on canvas
244 × 175.5 cm / 96 × 69 in
© Adam Pendleton
Untitled (masks)
2019
Silkscreen ink on Mylar, 4 parts
Overall dimensions variable
Sheet, each 131 x 101 cm / 51 1/2 x 39 1/2 in
Frame, each 138 x 108 cm / 54 1/4 x 42 1/4 in
© Adam Pendleton
Black Dada (A/A)
2019
Silkscreen ink on canvas, 2 parts
Overall dims. 244 × 193 cm / 96 × 76 in
Panel, each 122 × 193 cm / 48 × 76 in
© Adam Pendleton
Black Dada Drawing (C)
2018–2019
Silkscreen on paper
Sheet 66.5 × 53 cm / 26 1/8 × 20 3/4 in
Frame 71 × 57 cm / 27 13/16 × 22 7/16 in
© Adam Pendleton
Black Dada Drawing (D/D)
2018
Silkscreen ink on paper
Sheet 66.5 × 53 cm / 26 1/8 × 20 3/4 in
Frame 71 × 57 cm / 27 13/16 × 22 7/16 in
© Adam Pendleton
Ishmael in the Garden: A Portrait of Ishmael Houston-Jones
2018
Black-and-white and color video, 24 minutes 15 seconds
Dimensions variable
© Adam Pendleton
System of Display, I (WRITING/Art of Black Africa, Kunsthaus Zurich, 1970)
2018
Silkscreen ink on plexiglass and mirror
25 x 25 x 8 cm / 9 7/8 x 9 7/8 x 3 1/8 in
© Adam Pendleton
System of Display, D (AROUND/Jean-Marie Straub, Not Reconciled, Or Only Violence Helps Where Violence Rules, 1965)
2011
Silkscreen ink on plexiglass and mirror
25 x 25 x 8 cm / 9 7/8 x 9 7/8 x 3 1/8 in
© Adam Pendleton
