David Kelley

David Kelley is an interdisciplinary artist who works at the intersection of the body and landscape. His experimental documentary and ethnographic practices make use of video, photography, sculpture and performance strategies. His works have been shown internationally in galleries and museums. He has had recent solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Commonwealth and Council Gallery in Los Angeles. His recent group exhibitions include The Bank in Shanghai, the de Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Massachusetts, Basis Voor Actuele Kunst in Utrecht, MAAP Space in Brisbane, and the Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok.

Transamazonia is a suite of video installations, photographs and latex photo-sculptures that operates at the intersection of popular depictions of indigenous bodies, the Amazon landscape, and the legacies of Modernism in Brazil. Since colonialism, the indigenous body in Brazil has been depicted with natural metaphors that follow in well worn essentializations of the noble savage. The myth of the indigenous subject is comparable to Brazil's Modernist capital Brasilia and its afro Brazilian music and dance the samba in its national and international visibility. This suite of works takes a haptic, unsensational, and research-based approach to undermining these notions.

Exhibition Dates: 
Saturday, October 7, 2017 to Saturday, October 21, 2017

Produced by FLOOD in partnership with:

Arts Council for Long BeachMillworksPort of Long BeachIce House Arts Complex Long BeachLong Beach Community FoundationWork Evolution Laboratories