Adam Pendleton (b. 1984). OK DADA OK BLACK DADA OK, 2017. Silkscreen and spray paint on canvas. 84 x...

Description

Adam Pendleton (b. 1984)
OK DADA OK BLACK DADA OK, 2017
Silkscreen and spray paint on canvas
84 x 60 inches (213.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed: apen102

Property from a Distinguished Private Collection

PROVENANCE:
The artist;
Pace Gallery, New York;
Lever House Artworks, New York, acquired from the above.

EXHIBITED:
Lever House, New York, "What A Day Was This," March - August 2018.

Few contemporary artists explore the intersections of language, abstraction, and identity as powerfully as Adam Pendleton. Working across painting, printmaking, and installation, Pendleton uses text as both image and idea, rethinking how meaning is made and how history is told. His long-running Black Dada project, which draws its title from both the early Dada movement and Black avant-garde thought, is central to this exploration.

In OK DADA OK BLACK DADA OK, Pendleton transforms the surface of a large canvas into a dense field of black marks, letters, and words layered over white. The words "OK" and "DADA" repeat like an incantation, at times legible and at times obscured. Spray-painted lines and drips move across silkscreened text, creating a rhythm that feels both spontaneous and deliberate. The result is an image that seems to vibrate between control and chaos, between writing and gesture.

Pendleton's process often combines fragments from political speeches, poetry, and art history. Here, those sources are abstracted until language becomes visual - a texture of thought rather than a tool for clarity. The painting's black-and-white palette heightens the contrast between presence and absence, visibility and erasure, echoing the artist's ongoing questions about who gets to speak and how cultural memory is constructed.

Pendleton has described Black Dada as "a way to talk about the future while talking about the past." In OK DADA OK BLACK DADA OK, that idea comes alive. The work connects the radical experiments of early twentieth-century Dada with contemporary reflections on race, identity, and power. Its layered surface asks the viewer not just to look, but to read, to listen, and to question.

Both meditative and urgent, this painting embodies Pendleton's vision of language as a living, unstable form, one that resists fixed meaning and invites the viewer into an open conversation between history and the present.


Estimate: $120,000 - $180,000.

*Heritage Auctions strives to provide as much information as possible but encourages in-person inspection by bidders. Statements regarding the condition of objects are only for general guidance and should not be relied upon as complete statements of fact, and do not constitute a representation, warranty or assumption of liability by Heritage. Some condition issues may not be noted in the condition report but are apparent in the provided photos which are considered part of the condition report. Please note that we do not de-frame lots estimated at $1,000 or less and may not be able to provide additional details for lots valued under $500. Heritage does not guarantee the condition of frames and shall not be liable for any damage/scratches to frames, glass/acrylic coverings, original boxes, display accessories, or art that has slipped in frames. All lots are sold "AS IS" under the Terms & Conditions of Auction.

View all of [Property from a Distinguished Private Collection ]