Adam Pendleton on His Ongoing Exploration of “Black Dada”

Most widely recognized for his paintings that rigorously combine spray paint, stenciled geometric forms, and brushstrokes, the Brooklyn-based artist Adam Pendleton is also known for his “Black Dada” framework, an ever-evolving philosophy that investigates various relationships between Blackness, abstraction, and the avant-garde. Many will recognize Pendleton’s work from “Who Is Queen?,” his 2021 solo exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which he has said was his way of “trying to overwhelm the museum.” This is a natural position for him: His works in and of themselves are often overwhelming. At once political and spiritual, they provoke deep introspection and consideration, practically demanding viewers to look, and then look again.

On this episode, he discusses the elusive, multifarious nature of “Black Dada”; “An Abstraction,” his upcoming exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York (on view from May 3–August 16); painting as a kind of technology; and why, for him, jazz is indefinable.

Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

Adam Pendleton

[05:00] Joan Retallack

[05:00] Pasts, Futures, and Aftermaths

[05:22] “Becoming Imperceptible”

[07:41] Ishmael Houston-Jones

[07:41] Joan Jonas

[07:41] Lorraine O’Grady

[07:41] Yvonne Rainer

[07:41] Jack Halberstam

[14:26] Fred Moten

[05:22] “Who Is Queen?”

[23:50] Hugo Ball’s Dada Manifesto

[23:50] Amiri Baraka’s “Black Dada Nihilismus”

[31:14] Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

[31:14] “System of Display”

[31:14] “Reading Dante”

[34:40] “Adam Pendleton” at Pace Gallery

[34:40] “An Abstraction” at Pace Gallery

[34:40] Arlene Shechet

[34:40] “Adam Pendleton x Arlene Shechet”

[40:30] “Blackness, White, and Light” at MUMOK

[45:07] “Twenty-One Love Poems” by Audrienne Rich

[50:40] “Occupy Time” by Jason Adams

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