Dave McKenzie
�On Premises�
September 12 - October 24, 2009
Reception: Saturday, September 12, 6 - 8 pm
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new work by Dave McKenzie in the entire gallery space. In his videos, sculptures, performances, and installations, Dave McKenzie�s work explores how public space and the private self are connected and simultaneously restricted. At the heart of McKenzie�s diverse practice lies a quiet search for engagement, a poetic quest for interaction that lays bare the complications of social rules and obligations with which we navigate personal relationships.
In this new body of work McKenzie shifts from examining the specific relationship of the artist with his audience to a more fundamental investigation of the closest human relationships. A central work in the exhibition is a video entitled �Attunement� that plays out an alternate version of the pilot episode from The Cosby Show. While the central quote of this episode: "I brought you into this world, and I'll take you out!" garnered huge laughs, McKenzie looks at this statement in a larger cultural context that provides a much darker and threatening reading. The video looks at such powerful emotions as love and fear that are at the heart of our closest human relationships. Revealing connected issues of faith and obedience, of power and subjugation, it exposes the difficulty of our connections to the people around us.
Proposal (2007), a painting which is both a unique object and a multiple, proposes something else by uttering, �This painting is a proposal. I propose we meet once a year every year until one of us can�t or won�t.� The work is an offer of a meeting that can only take place by mutual agreement but can also only happen during the overlapping of two lives and as such there is no obvious hierarchy.
Dave McKenzie was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2000. Recent solo exhibitions include �Screen Doors on Submarines�, REDCAT, Los Angeles; �Momentum 8: Dave McKenzie�, The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston; �Tomorrow will be Better�, Small A Projects, Portland; �Haven�t Seen You in a Minute�, Gallery 40000, Chicago; McKenzie�s work was included in �Prospect.1 New Orleans", and in group exhibitions at the RISD Museum, Providence; the New Museum, New York; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, in �Black is, Black Ain�t�, The Renaissance Society at the University at the University of Chicago, Chicago; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Kitchen, New York, and at Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn. This is Dave McKenzie�s second solo exhibition at the gallery.
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is located at 5795 West Washington Blvd in Culver City, between Fairfax and La Cienega. Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 am - 6 pm and by appointment.
DAVE MCKENZIE
1977 Born in Kingston, Jamaica
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
Education
2000 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
The University of the Arts, B.F.A in Printmaking
Solo Exhibitions
2009 �On Premises�, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Culver City, CA
2008 �Screen Doors on Submarines�, REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA
2007 �Momentum 8: Dave McKenzie�, The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston, MA
�Tomorrow will be Better�, Small A Projects, Portland, OR
2006 �Haven�t Seen You in a Minute�, Gallery 40000, Chicago, IL
2005 �Portrait as a Ghost�, Savage Art Resources, Portland, OR
2004 "Together is Forever", Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Culver City
Group Exhibitions
2009 �Unusual Behavior�, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA
�Character Generator�, Eleven Rivington, New York, NY
�Convention�, MOCA, North Miami, FL
�To the left of the rising sun�, Small A Projects, New York
�Collected. Propositions on the Permanent Collection�, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New
York, NY
2008 �Prospect.1 New Orleans", International Biennial, curated by Dan Cameron, New Orleans, LA (catalogue)
�This Shadow is a Bit of Ideology�, Gallery 400, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, curated by Kelly
Chen and Anthony Elms
�As Others See Us: The Contemporary Portrait�, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT
�Alternating Beats�, The RISD Museum, Providence, RI
�Museum as Hub: Six Degrees�, New Museum, New York, NY (brochure)
�Free Parking�, Boston Center for the Arts' Mills Gallery, Boston, MA
�On Procession�, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN
�Black is, Black Ain�t�, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
�Disinhibition: Black Art and Blue Humor�, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL
�You & Me, SometimesI�, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
�Good Doll Bad Doll�, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA
�A New High in Getting Low (NYC)�, John Connelly Presents, New York, NY
�A Thousand Years of Sculpture�, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philidelphia, PA
�Working History: African American Art and Objects�, Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery,
Reed College, Portland, OR (Catalogue)
�Slightly Unbalanced�, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL, and traveling to: Huntington
Museum of Art, Huntington WV, Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, Lafayette, LA
(Catalogue)
2007 �PERFORMA 07 Biennial: All Together Now�, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem, NY (Catalogue)
�Looking Back: The White Columns Annual�, selected by Clarissa Dalrymple, White Columns New
York, NY
�A New High in Getting Low�, Artnews Projects, Berlin, Germany
�Just Kick it Till it Breaks�, The Kitchen, New York, NY, curated by Debra Singer and Matthew
Lyons, (Catalogue)
�Mr. President�, University Art Museum, University of Albany, Albany, NY (Catalogue)
2004 �Me, Myself, and I� Schnidt Center, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
"Figuratively: Dave McKenzie, Wangechi Mutu, William Villalongo", The Studio Museum, Harlem, NY
�Open House: Working in Brooklyn�, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY (catalog)
"The Sneeze 80 x 80", Gazon Rouge Gallery, Athens, Greece
2003 �American Idyll�, Metrotech Center Commons, Brooklyn, NY. (Catalog)
�24/7�, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania
�In Practice�, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY
2002 �Videodrome II�, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
�Americas Remixed�, The Factory of the Vapor, Milan, Italy (catalog)
�Queens International�, Queens Museum of Art, NY (catalog)
�Listening to New Voices�, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY
�Supervideonight�, Gale Gates, New York, NY
�Slow Dive�, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
�Video Marathon: Bringing up the (Mediated) Body�, Art in General, New York, NY
�Multiplicity�, Midway Gallery, St. Paul, MN
�Room for a Revolution�, Deluxe Gallery, Chicago, IL
2001 �Video Call�, ICA, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
�Something/Nothing-Passport to the State of Flux�, Art in General, NY
�Material World�, Susquehanna Art Museum/VanGo, Harrisburg, PA
�Freestyle�, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (Catalog) and traveled to Santa
Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA
�In/SITE/Out: Inquiries into Social Space�, Apexart, New York, NY
Bibliography
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