Dennis Adams (born 1948) is an American artist. He has made urban interventions and museum installations that reveal historical and political undercurrents in
photography,
cinema,
public space and
architecture.
About
Adams was born in
Des Moines,
Iowa. Through his urban interventions and museum installations, Adams has focused on the conception of photography as a medium that has crucially transformed the representation of history as a primary means for the open reconstruction of imagery resonating within the realm of social context. His first decade of activity is best documented in the
monograph entitled Dennis Adams: The Architecture of Amnesia (1989). Beginning in 1998, Adams began to explore the medium of video and social engagement with projects such as OUTTAKE (1999), Makedown (2004), Spill (2009) and most recently Malraux's Shoes (2012).[1]
Adams has produced site-specific interventions, often in highly visible locations such as bus shelters, and urban public settings that focus on the phenomenon of
collective amnesia in the late twentieth century. A survey of ten years of site-specific works was published in a monograph entitled Dennis Adams: The Architecture of Amnesia (1989) written by Maryanne Staniszewski. The publication was followed by two mid-career surveys organized by the
Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen and the
Contemporary Art Museum of Houston. Following the events of September 11 near his
Tribeca studio, Adams created a poetic series of fourteen
Ektachrome photographs portraying the detritus filled sky over lower Manhattan. The series was entitled AIRBORNE' which after being shown in New York in 2002 was subsequently featured in the Le Mois de la Photo (Montreal) 2003 and PhotoEspana (Madrid) 2004.
Beginning in 1998 and continuing today, Adams began to explore the possibilities of video with his OUTTAKE, exhibited in Bremen, Berlin and with Kent in New York. Adams presented a 17:23-second segment (416 film stills) from Bambule, a 1969 un-broadcast German documentary on delinquent girls directed by
Ulrike Meinhof. These photographic stills were re-recorded as they were distributed in the Kurfurstendamm, Berlin, as "handbills," or "flyers," associated with political propaganda and advertising. Adams continued realizing a number of single channel videos including "Takedown", "Spill", "Curtain Call", "Black Belmondo" and prominently a performative installation entitled 'MAKE DOWN (2005). Here, Adams addresses the complexity of layers of representation contained in one except from The Battle of Algiers, particularly in the context of the ongoing transformations of the historical conflict between Islamic and Western cultures. Instead of presuming to unravel these meanings, Adams chooses instead to locate himself between the frames of the image in a re-enactment of the process of disguise.
Adams has been a faculty member or Visiting Professor at numerous institutions including the
Parsons School of Design; École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam; and the Akademie der Bildenden Kunst, Munich. From 1997 to 2004, he was the Director of the Visual Arts Program in the School of Architecture at
MIT in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. He currently lectures at Cooper Union, New York.
Artist books
Adams, Dennis, and Mary A. Staniszewski. The Architecture of Amnesia. New York, N.Y:
Kent Fine Art, 1990.[2]
Adams, Dennis. Dennis Adams: Double Feature. New York, N.Y:
Kent Fine Art, 2008.[3]
Recovered 10 on 10 – Adams on Garanger, produced and published in 1993 by Les Maîtres de Forme Contemporains (mfc-michèle didier), Bruxelles. Limited edition of 6 numbered and signed copies and 3 artist's proofs. Voir mfc
1990 "The Ready Made Boomerang", Sydney Biennale, Australia
1991 "Road to Victory", PROJECT Series, Museum of Modern Art, New York[6]
1991 "The Solar Anus", Musée Frac Bretagne, Rennes, France.
1992 "Post Human", FAE Musée d'Art Contemporain, Pully/Lausanne, Switzerland; traveled to: Castello di Rivoli, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Torino; Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens; Deichtorhallen Hamburg[7]
1993 "Der Müll, ( ) Unde Der Tod",
Portikus, Frankfurt am Main
1994 "Selling History" (retrospective), Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston
1994 "Transactions" (retrospective), Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen
1995 "Light Constructions", Museum of Modern Art, New York
1995 "10 thru 20" (solo exhibition), Stroom HCBK, The Hague
1996 "Ederle", Queens Museum of Art, New York
1999 "Panorama 2000", Organized by
Centraal Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands
2015 "Looking Back / The 9the White Columns Annual",
White Columns, New York
Bibliography
By Adams
"Questionnaire." Zone 1–2, 1986, pp. 423, 455.
"Sky Writing." Historias: VII Edición del Festival Internacional de Fotografia y Artes Visuales PhotoEspaña. Catalogue. Madrid: 2004, pp. 63–66, 168–170.