Name/Title
Events Are (Semia Culture)Entry/Object ID
2016.08Description
Black background with patches of white that resemble an incomplete faceArtwork Details
Medium
silkscreen on canvasContext
Conceptual artist Adam Pendleton, self-proclaimed Black Dadaist, engages with the reinterpretation and reinvention of blackness in historical narratives with his art works. His exploration of blackness moves away from the artist and instead sees blackness as “material, method, and mode.” Manifesting itself in a multi-disciplinary practice including performance, photo collage, paint, video, and publishing, Pendleton’s commitment to the use of language is essential in every form he engages with and also frequents the use of pre-existing text and imagery in his works.
Events Are (Semia Culture) is a silkscreen image on canvas of Bonnie Bremser’s novel “For Love of Ray” which chronicles her life as a prostitute in Mexico after her husband, American beat poet Ray Bremser, was imprisoned. Ray Bremser, who was influenced in his poetry by black musicians, was first published by African American writer Amiri Baraka, born LeRoi Jones. Amiri Baraka published a poem in 1964 titled “Black Dada Nihilism” which contributed to Pendleton’s writing of the “The Black Dada Manifesto” in 2008.Acquisition
Accession
2016.07-09Acquisition Method
GiftCredit Line
Collection of DePaul Art Museum, Gift of Nancy and Robert MollersEthnography
Notes
North America
United StatesInscription/Signature/Marks
Location
top left versoTranscription
[artist signature]Notes
Inscription Type: black inkLocation
top left versoTranscription
2007Notes
Inscription Type: black inkLexicon
Getty AAT
Concept
African American, modern North American, modern American, Americas, TheHierarchy Name
Styles and Periods (hierarchy name)Facet
Styles and Periods FacetLOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials
Poetry, Language, LiteratureDimensions
Dimension Description
canvasWidth
16 inLength
22 inExhibition
DPAM Collects: Happy Little Trees and Other Recent AcquisitionsInterpretative Labels
Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
Adam Pendleton (American, b. 1984)
Events Are (Semia Culture), 2007
Silkscreen on canvas
Collection of DePaul Art Museum, gift of Nancy & Robert Mollers
2016.8
Adam Pendleton is a conceptual artist and self-proclaimed “Black Dadaist.” In the early 20th century, European Dadaism was an art movement used to express artists’ rejections of war and capitalistic society. It championed pun and play over rationality. For Pendleton, “Black Dada refers to Dada in an arguably illogical way. So much of Dada was about the absurdity of life, and there’s something absurd about America today. I couldn’t help but respond as an artist—and a citizen.”
Pendleton reinvents blackness in historical narratives through techniques borrowed from absurdist poetry and minimal compositions, often putting equal emphasis on text and image. Events Are (Semia Culture) is a silkscreen representation of the novel For the Love of Ray by Bonnie Bremser, which details her life as a prostitute in Mexico after the imprisonment of her husband, poet Ray Bremser. Amiri Baraka, the first writer to publish Ray Bremser’s poems, produced a work in 1964 called “Black Dada Nihilism,” which influenced Pendleton’s writing of “The Black Dada Manifesto” in 2008.