Dave Hullfish Bailey - SCI-FI + FANTASY; MUD, SALT CRYSTALS, ROCKS... / April 30 - June 5, 2010
Fullt title: SCI-FI + FANTASY; MUD, SALT CRYSTALS, ROCKS, WATER; WIND; ROTATION; REVOLUTION
Opening & Book Launch: May 2, 2010, 2-6 pm
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Krome Gallery presents the first gallery exhibition in Germany by Dave Hullfish Bailey (*1963). To date the Los Angeles based artist has mainly shown his site-specific and research-based projects at international art institutions.
Bailey’s exhibition at Krome Gallery is conceived in close relation to his recently published artist book, "What’s Left" (2009, Sternberg Press, Berlin and Casco, Utrecht), and to the exhibition site on Karl-Marx-Allee. From the diverse research collected in the book, Bailey presents a series of photographic images that document the self-organized, open-air library at so-called Slab City, a squatters’ camp located on an abandoned military base in California’s southern desert. Alongside these images he includes selected pieces of new research, a text-based slide projection, and a collection of sculptural objects, some of which were created in situ of materials being thrown out by local Berlin libraries.
Together, these elements propose a chain of connections which are rooted in concrete details of location, yet are at the same time highly speculative. By linking these official and unofficial collections of books with each other and with the exhibition and publication site – the gallery is located adjacent to the former Karl Marx Bookstore which was founded in the GDR and today is the office of Sternberg Press – Bailey frames questions about the social spaces of learning, and the possibly asocial reasons for reading.
"...In
other words, I am building the exhibition out of concerns developed in the
book, that have to do with dis-organizing and reorganizing information, but
also with social structures. These relate in the cultural function
of pedagogy, as a means of creating social cohesion. The Slab City Library
(with its heavy weighting of escapist literature), the Rodchenko reading room,
and the ghost of the Karl-Marx-Buchhandlung, are specific versions of this
nexus between the organization of information (as matter and as ideas) and the
organization of the in-dividual and the collective at the level of the
social."
(Dave Hullfish Bailey)
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Self-reflexively, Bailey’s inquiry unfolds through diverse methodologies ranging from the accepted to the idiosyn-cratic: the objectivizing lens of the camera, empirical experimentation, word play and logical games, and site investigations that recall those of Situationist ‘psychogeography’. In this regard the project extends Dave Hullfish Bailey’s performative investigation of issues concerning the production of meaning, and the instrumentalization of informa-tion as a dynamic in the construction of public and private social spaces.
"Making use of a wide range of strategies, Bailey’s installations and sculptures make elbow room and escape routes for when the spaces we inhabit are threatened with being shut down. They speak of the protean fluidity of space with its migrations and occupations, exposing frontiers and trouble spots, haunts and refuges, and investigating the social opportunities latent in our individual mapping and world-making activities... Beneath Bailey’s playfulness is a strong sense of urgency. His work makes it clear that the limits of civilization are not only encountered in wars and disasters, but are inherent in the ways we imagine the world politically. How do we find ways to get along, here and now? How do we enter into co-operative communities without stumbling into the same old collectivist pitfalls?"
(Lars Bang Larsen)
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After completing degrees in philosophy and theology Dave Hullfish Bailey studied at the Art Center College of Design Pasadena where he graduated in 1995. Since then he has realized numerous exhibitions, site-based projects and lecture performances worldwide, including solo exhibitions at Secession, Vienna (2004) and Casco, Utrecht (2007), and a two-person show with Nils Norman at Raven Row, London (2009). His first solo exhibition in Germany was at Berlin’s Künstlerhaus Bethanien, as part of its international residency program. In Berlin his works have also been included in several group exhibitions at the Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK, 1998, 2003, 2008).
He has participated in international group exhibitions including the 2nd Berlin Biennial (1998), "Charley“ at P.S.1 New York (2002), “Turrbal-Jagera’, Brisbane (2007), the Lyon Biennale (2008) and the touring exhibition "For the blind man in the dark..." (2009- 2010), which was recently on view at the ICA London, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and the de Appel Arts Center Amsterdam a.o.
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Sci-fi + Fantasy; Mud, Salt Crystals, Rocks, Water; Wind; Rotation; Revolution
Installation view at Krome Gallery, Berlin
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Document Shredder (reading device for a dark and wind-wracked place / fifth proto-type)
2010
Pencil on plywood, steel, aluminum, cable ties, film canister, magnets, copper wire, red LED bulbs
42 x 102 x 44 cm / 16,5 x 40 x 17,3 in
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Document Shredder (reading device for a dark and wind-wracked place / sixth proto-type)
2010
Pencil on plywood, steel, aluminum, cable ties, film canister, magnets, copper wire, red LED bulbs
73 x 60 x 20 cm / 28,7 x 23,6 x 7,9 in
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Document Shredder (reading device for a dark and wind-wracked place / fourth proto-type)
2010
Pencil on plywood, steel, aluminum, cable ties, film canister, magnets, copper wire, red LED bulbs
101 x 42 x 6 cm / 39,8 x 16,5 x 2,4 in
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Document Shredder (reading device for a dark and wind-wracked place / third proto-type)
2010
Pencil on plywood, steel, aluminum, cable ties, film canister, magnets, copper wire, red LED bulbs
90 x 100 x 17 cm / 35,4 x 39,4 x 6,7 in
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Document Shredder (reading device for a dark and wind-wracked place / seventh prototype)
2010
Pencil on plywood, steel, aluminum, cable ties, film canister, magnets, copper wire, red LED bulbs
60 x 73 x 73 cm / 23,6 x 28,7 x 28,7 in
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Failed attempt to induce an impulse; attempt to induce a failed impulse
2010
Film canister, magnets, copper wire, diode, red LED bulb
12 x 7 x 6 cm / 4,7 x 2,8 x 2,4 in
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Support structure for sorting it out alone (first version: Heinrich-Böll-Bibliothek, Prenzlauer Berg; Else-Ury-Bibliothek, Kreuzberg)
2010
Salvaged materials, fasteners
120 x 300 x 90 cm / 47,2 x 118 x 35,4 in
DAVE HULLFISH BAILEY: SCI-FI+FANTASY
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Untitled (rotation/revolution)
2010
Research materials (laser prints), salvaged shelf, magnets
50 x 79 x 3 cm / 19,7 x 31 x 1,2 in
Dave Hullfish Bailey
Untitled #15, from the series: Working approximation of a conventional form, re-determined by prevailing conditions
2007/2008
15 b/w laser prints
Each 19,5 x 19,5 cm / 7,7 x 7,7 in,
framed 28 x 28 cm / 11 x 11 in
Ed. 3 + 1 AP