DERRICK ADAMS
Born 1970, Baltimore, MD
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
2003 MFA, Columbia University, New York, NY
1996 BFA, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
Selected honors: Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2009)
Selected museum exhibitions and performances: The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; MoMA PS1, New York; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Brooklyn Museum, New York; PERFORMA, New York
Selected public collections: Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Through the mediums of collage, video, sculpture and drawing, Brooklyn-based artist Derrick Adams explores the way mass media affects identity, particularly in the context of African Americans in contemporary culture. “Most of my work resides in this idea of how outside influences impact the construction of self-image,” he has said.
In his collage works mimicking television screens, Adams takes his source imagery from screen captures of old clips from YouTube, which he then uses as reference. “The images come from…everything from ‘Good Times’ to ‘Coming to America’ to Oprah on the news…These images I’m taking from all these shows—from comedy to news or whatever—all are representations of black characterization…These images can be problematic because they’re such a high-animated state that they become more like caricatures of themselves”. In rendering these reference images with blocks of color, Adams confronts the media’s deconstruction of reality.
In 2016, Adams described his complex relationship with mass media: “I have a love/hate relationship with media and television. My practice in general is a middle way of meeting the viewer. I’m interested in form, function and formal aesthetics, but I’m also interested in people having fun and enjoying themselves”.
