Lot 86: DENNIS ADAMS

DENNIS ADAMS AMERICAN B.1948 BLACK FACE 2007 black oil-based ink on glass mirrors, edition 1/12 each: 27.9 x 21.6 cm / 11 x 8.5" (30)

Some recent solo exhibitions
Lumen Travo, Amsterdam 2009
Kent Gallery, New York 2008
Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris 2007

Some recent group exhibitions
Mucsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest 2009, 'Blickmaschinen'
Biennale of Bordeaux, 2009, 'Evento',
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main 2008, 'REAL – Photographs from the Collection of the DZ Bank'
Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw 2008, 'Revolutions 1968'
Foto Kunst Stadtforum, Innsbruck 2007, 'Der Traum vom Ich/Der Traum von der Welt'
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2006, 'Down By Law'

Selected publications
Dennis Adams: double feature, New York: Kent Gallery 2008

Selected public and corporate collections
MoMA, New York, US • Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US • Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Paris, FR • MUHKA, Antwerp, BE • Fotomuseum Winterthur, CH • Lenbachhaus Städtische Galerie, Munich, DE • Muzej suvremene umjetnosti, Zagreb, HR • Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, AT

donated by the artist
courtesy: Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam

Dennis Adams is internationally recognized for his urban interventions and museum installations that reveal historic and political undercurrents in public space and architecture. In this work Black Face the tragedy of the American actress Jean Seberg's life and political affiliations become the central subject. Her connection to the Black Panther Party made her a target for the FBI. Their interdepartmental correspondence, now declassified, is presented in this most fascinating and terrifying series. These documents are reproduced in their original size via silkscreen printed on mirrors. Black deletion markings censor still-sensitive names, but the story can still be found here. J. Edgar Hoover decided that Seberg's support of the Black Pathers made her a threat to the American way of life, and issued an order to have her career destroyed by leaking a story to the gossip columns that she was pregnant by one of the leaders of the Panthers. The mirrors as the reproduction of actual artifacts are telling documents of racism and conspiracy. The use of their graphic layering as a mask for the viewer's reflection is what ultimately makes them so visually compelling.

Dennis Adams is a former advisor at the Rijksakademie.