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Daniel John Gadd
FALCONRY
November 3, 2017 - December 10, 2017DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary
Daniel John Gadd
FALCONRY
November 3, 2017 - December 10, 2017DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary
Beyond Obeisance: The Falcon and the Falconerby Jason Andrew
“The true value […] is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth.”– Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781)
Pure expression is what one gets from the paintings of Daniel John Gadd—an all-out battle of ego. But that’s not all. In an effort to reclaim the past, for Gadd, his paintings are a battle for redemption.
What might first seem entirely instinctual and spontaneous, is not. Gadd wrestles with the making, chop-ping, justifying and wrangling of it into a structure that harbors a surface of drama so specific that it is as though the work delivers reason into a world without it.
More so than any work to date, this recent work exposes the skeletal support of his new paintings including the anatomy that propels us along his path through mass, momentum, and metaphor. Any-one close to Gadd knows that there is a hell-of-a-lot of moral searching in his work and he has uniquely devised ways to source, question, and resolve.
In “Cygnus,” Gadd introduces a cross-like construction that sends us searching upward into the heavens for that swan shaped constellation of the same name. The one that lies on the Northern plane of the Milky Way and sailors see as a good omen among the night sky. I think it means the same for Gadd—that although there is agony among his wreckage and assembled debris, there is still hope—a state just beyond reach reminding us of our humanity among the cosmos. “I can’t be a pessimist because I’m alive,” James Baldwin said.
“Mutant Sun” is a blazing composition. It is a large celestial construction that, to me, charts the path of the setting sun. It is as though Gadd has compressed every one of his life’s memories of seeing the glowing disk hit the horizon and then sink onward to the other side, into this single painting. The title cites a series of early 80s paintings by bad boy Julian Schnabel called “Mutant King.” Gadd captures the
spiral gesture of his neo-expressionist predecessor, but moves beyond mere mimicry accentuating the turbulent over the personage by doubling the movement in a tumbling color of red.
For the inspiration for two pivotal new paintings, Gadd dips back even further in history, sourcing a poem by W. B. Yeats called “The Second Coming.” Written in January 1919 and in the wake of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and political turmoil in his native Ireland, Yeats’ poem cries out about more than just the political unrest and the violence worldwide. It points to the collective loss of faith and with it, the collective sense of purpose (a kind of human disconnect). Yeats writes:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…
Fastening himself on the second line of the poem’s daunting text, Gadd gives title to two paintings: “Fal-con” and the “Falconer.” Beyond the symbolic reference of the bird in flight and the one that commands it, the three-sided shape of the paintings allude to a trinity of sorts. Likely, it is representative of the artist holding tight to his family unit (himself, his wife, and his young daughter). In both paintings, however, there is a side that has either been removed or has yet to be completed. It is in this empty space where Gadd is most himself. Where he is most poetic. Where he asks us to abandon logic and take a leap of visual faith to connect/inform the line that is missing.
A similar circumstance is offered in a work called “Veil,” where Gadd gives a half-view overture of the other side. Gadd talks about layering this work in paint eight to ten times over and then scraping back the layers to were he is “getting it right or giving up.” It’s all or nothing for Gadd. We become fixed on un-derstanding that which is revealed and that which is concealed. We see beyond the painting as an object and see it as metaphor: Do we accept the whole truth even that which is hidden? Gadd understands all too well that our modern minds challenge that place where we can both know and believe.
“Untitled,” with its shattered mirror at its crux and outstretched appendages splattered with paint, seem-ingly exists at the edge of breath and death. Reaching back to his early figurative work, Gadd shares a philosophy (and so much more) with the muralist and sculptor Rico Lebrun who saw human form as a
“container for drama, for all the joy and for all the tragedy, all the times for everything…”
The great humanity in Gadd’s work, as he tells it, is “taking something that is broken and putting it back together… not putting it back together perfectly, but back together renewed.” As sentimental as this may sound, the work is far from precious. And his choice of materials enforces just that. His use of a mirror adhesive called Mastic, keeps his paintings visceral and messy. Applying it in copious amounts, Gadd can position a shard of glass and then correct its placement by sliding to the left or more to the right. This sliding leaves a gestural residue that shows off the memory of a mark. Willem de Kooning’s multi-valent impact was already keenly present in Gadd’s work, but Gadd has found a way to exaggerate and accentuate the sculptural body of a mark.
This same idea of exaggeration and accentuation can also be applied to another important element in Gadd’s work: the use of light and the refraction and reflection of it. Just in recent years, the artist has more readily integrated shattered planes of mirrored glass (I was among the first to encounter the introduction of glass in his work at his old Troutman studio). Again, there is the obvious metaphor, that of reflection (Gadd has caught many a viewer positioning themselves perfectly for a selfie). But again, beyond the obvious, is the technical trial and error, the variation upon variations to control a material so staggeringly ridged and yet so remarkably beautiful (and emotionally charged). Especially when it is shattered.
“An artist must create an optic, a way of seeing nature like it’s never been seen before,” said Carlo Scarp, the architect and innovator in the Venetian glass movement. I think we can agree that Gadd has found a singular expressive voice. His is one found through not only the searching and discovery of reinventing painting, but also understanding the real time and place we all find ourselves living in. A place where the falcon doesn’t respond to the call of his master, winging beyond obeisance. That perhaps absurdity, not Truth, should be at the center of our faith.
Jason Andrew is the manager/curator of the Estate of Jack Tworkov and Elizabeth Murray. In 2004 he
founded with the choreographer Julia K. Gleich the non-profit Norte Maar.
Falcon, 2017 38” x 28” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Veil, 2016-17 39” x 36” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Cygnus, 201774” x 72” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Mask, 201719.25” x 10.5” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Mutant Sun, 2017120” x 96” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Betta, 201725” x 20” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Decoy, 201716” x 16” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Kimono, 201779” x 61.5” - oil, mirrored glass, string, wax and metal leaf on wooden panel
Squab, 201712” x 12” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Falconer, 2017 49” x 38” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Untitled, 201775” x 86” - oil, mirrored glass and paper on wooden panel
Untitled, 201721” x 25.5” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden
Falconry, 2017112” x 79.5” - oil, mirrored glass, wax, copper, and metal leaf on wooden panels
Under You, 2017 26” x 26” - oil, wax, metal leaf, mirrored glass, on wooden panel
Wing, 201712” x 12” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Sextant, 2017105” x 79” - oil, mirrored glass, wax and metal leaf on wooden panels
Blackbird, 201716” x 16” - oil, wax and mirrored glass on wooden panel
Born - 1986, New JerseyWorks in Brooklyn, NY Education:School of Visual Arts, New York, B.F.A. - 2009 Selected Exhibitions:2017 Falconry, DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY (Solo) Summer Invitational, DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY Zachary Keeting with Daniel John Gadd, FRED.GIAMPIETRO Gallery, CT Straight Outta Bushwick, Chimento Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA2016 For The Moon, DAVID&SCHWEITZER Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY (Solo) Reality is Wrong, Dreams Are For Real, DSC ANNEX, Brooklyn, NY An Occasional Dream, Life on Mars Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Sideshow on Mars, Life On Mars Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Forvever After: Painting and the Eye That Touches, Curated by Cory Dixon, Brock University, Ontario Lazuli, Curated by Enrico Gomez, Ground Floor Gallery, BK2015 We Are What The Seas Have Made Us, Curated by Catherine Haggarty, Proto, Hoboken, NJ Momenta Art Benefit, BK, NY Family Ties, 500X Gallery, Dallas, TX New Work City, Momenta Art, BK, NY2014 Back to the Future Pt. 1, Life On Mars Gallery, BK, NY Soft Substitutes/Heavy Thinking, Elgin Gallery, BK, NY Cutlog Art Fair, JAG Fine Art, New York, NY Second Family, Curated by Julie Torres NY, NY2013 Rosemma, JAG Fine Art, Philadelphia. PA. Aqua Art Miami, JAG Fine Art Booth, Miami, FL Cutlog Art Fair, JAG Fine Art, New York, NY2012 Paintings, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, NY, NY Red Dot Art Fair, JAG Fine Art Booth, Miami, FL Group Show, JAG Fine Art,, Philadelphia, PA A Small Embassy of Living Painters, Appels Gallery, Amsterdam Affordable Art Fair, Tache Gallery Booth, NY, NY Affordable Art Fair, 10 Year Retrospective, Visual Arts Gallery, NY, NY
2011 Winter Group Show, Tache Gallery, New York, NY Dividing Light / Measuring Darkness, Curious Matter, Jersey City, NJ Emergence, JAG Fine Art, Long Beach Island, NJ2010 Fever Dream, Sam’s Spaces, Lambertville, NJ* Summer, JAG Fine Art, Long Beach Island, NJ Mendros Festival, Aegean, Turkey Promenade ,Gallery U, Montclair, NJ2009 Octet, Codes and Contexts in Recent Art. Curated by Suzanne Anker and Peter Hristoff, Visual Arts Gallery, NY, NY The Sum of Nothing, Curated by Sarah O’Donaghue, Brooklyn, NY Octet, Curated by Suzanne Anker and Peter Hristoff, Pera Museum, Istanbul Jet Of Blood, Frigid Theatre Festival, New York, NY New Art In New York II,Visual Arts Gallery, NY, NY2008 Image, Fall Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada Aqua Art Miami, Visual Arts Gallery Booth, Miami, Fl New Art In New York, Visual Arts Gallery, NY, NY Prime Time, Westside Gallery, New York, NY Affordable Art Fair, Visual Arts Gallery Booth, NY, NY Selected Bibliography:At the Studio: Daniel John Gadd - ATMOS (artcloud), Madison Fishman, The Artistry of Daniel John Gadd WhiteHot Magazine, Jeffrey Grunthaner, James Kalm Rough CutsGorky’s Granddaughter The Conversation Project, Brett WallaceWe Are What The Seas Have Made Us, Beauty and Decay At at Proto Gallery, Etty Yanviv, Bushwick BuzzHighlights of Bushwick Open Studios, Danielle BurnhamDaniel John Gadd, Rosemma, with essay by Farrell Brickhouse 2013 (Catalogue) Spotlight, 30 Things We Love About NY, Where Magazine, Jan. 2012Dividing Light/ Measuring Darkness (Catalogue), 2011Daniel John Gadd, Paintings and Drawings 2010 (self published)20/20 (catalog), Selected by Ken Johnson, School of Visual Arts, 2009 Octet (catalog), Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206 • [email protected] • davidandschweitzer.com
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