NEW YORK: Derrick Adams

Derrick Adams, Can We Talk, 2011-13; digital photograph; 36 x 24" each. Image via louisbjames.com.

In the Company of Others

September 8 – October 19, 2013

Opening reception: Sunday, September 8, 2013, 6-8PM

LOUIS B. JAMES

146B Orchard Street

New York, NY

Louis B. James is pleased to present In the Company of Others, a solo exhibition of performance-based photography and video by New York based artist Derrick Adams.

The suites of photographs and video document Adams’ Communicating with Shadows performance series, originally staged over one week in an installation in Brooklyn, NY. During the performances Adams created enlarged, projected silhouette impressions of performance scenes from artists Joseph Beuys, David Hammons, Adrian Piper, Bruce Nauman and Jim Henson as a means of developing a personal conversation between the past and the present and to highlight their influence on Adams’ own practice.

The source material for this performance comes from archive images documenting historical performances from each artist. These iconic images were used to cast a shadow within which Adams performed an interpretation of the source image. This performance remix highlights the original context and intent made by their creators while also exploring new ways of seeing these historical works as they pertain to current conversations related to media culture, consumerism and product placement in art. The strategies employed were improvisational and similar to a child’s, whose actions are influenced by exposure to language and instruction from an imposing adult figure.

Derrick Adams lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His diverse work, from sculpture to performance, has been exhibited at MoMA PS1; the Boston Center for the Arts; the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; The Studio Museum of Harlem; the Brooklyn Academy of Music, among other institutions. Work for In the Company of Others will also be on view in Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art at The Studio Museum of Harlem from November 14, 2013 through March 14, 2014. The original performance of Communicating with Shadows was produced by Carmen Hammons, in 2011.

Exhibit Link