Dave Hullfish Bailey
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Harvard Divinity School (MTS)
Art Center College of Design (MFA)
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Dave Hullfish Bailey | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1963 (age 62–63) Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
| Education | Carleton College (BA) Harvard Divinity School (MTS) Art Center College of Design (MFA) Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture |
| Known for | Sculpture, installation art, artist books |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (2018) |
Dave Hullfish Bailey (born 1963, Denver, Colorado) is an American artist based in Los Angeles. His project-based practice combines sculpture, installation, photography, drawing, text, artist books, and social interventions to investigate the geographic, environmental, and cultural histories embedded in specific sites.[1][2]
Bailey earned a BA in philosophy from Carleton College and holds an MTS from Harvard Divinity School and an MFA from the Art Center College of Design.[1][3] He also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.[1]
Work
Bailey's practice centers on what he describes as "speculative geography," a method combining field research, scholarly inquiry, and poetic speculation to examine overlooked landscapes and the social, environmental, and political narratives they contain.[2][4] His sculptural assemblages incorporate diverse materials - livestock feeders, car bumpers, maps, roofing panels, printer supplies, and site-gathered detritus - arranged to establish systems of linguistic and functional relationships.[5] The work addresses themes of land use, human impact on ecological systems, and the politics of place, with frequent reference to the legacy of Robert Smithson.[6]
CityCat Project
Since 2003, Bailey has collaborated with Aboriginal Australian writer and activist Sam Watson on the CityCat Project, an ongoing work of art and land-rights activism based in Brisbane, Australia.[1][7] The central element is the Maiwar Performance, in which CityCat ferries on the Brisbane River (known as Maiwar in the local Aboriginal language) execute unannounced diversions near a site of significance to the Aboriginal people who lived on the surrounding lands before British colonisation. After the first staging in December 2006, Watson designated the performance a contemporary "Dreaming" and authorised it to be periodically repeated. It has been restaged in 2009, 2012, and 2016.[7][8]
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
Bailey has held solo exhibitions at institutions including REDCAT, Los Angeles (Hardscrabble, 2018); Saint Louis Art Museum (Currents 117, 2019); Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2014); Malmö Konsthall (Broken Country, 2013); Raven Row, London (with Nils Norman, 2009); Secession, Vienna (Elevator, 2006); and Casco, Utrecht (2007).[2][1][9]
Group exhibitions and biennials
His work has been included in a number of international biennials, among them the 30th Bienal de São Paulo (The Imminence of Poetics, 2012),[10] the Busan Biennale (2020),[11] the Biennale de Lyon (2007), the Socle du Monde Biennial, Herning (2004), and the first Berlin Biennale/Plattform (1998).[1] Additional group exhibitions have been held at venues including the ICA, London; De Appel, Amsterdam; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Culturgest, Lisbon; and Brisbane Art Design 2019 at the Museum of Brisbane.[1][12]
