Adam Pendleton Paints Amsterdam Museum Black

Adam Pendleton's latest exhibition, "Some Wild Kind of Language," opening at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam on October 10, features a striking intervention: the museum's 19th-century grand stairway will be painted black. This radical act, which the museum notes is the first time the stairway has been painted black since 1895, is central to Pendleton's artistic project.

Pendleton, who has explored his "Black Dada" concept for over two decades, borrows the term from Amiri Baraka's work. It signifies a radical rejection of Western art traditions and a call for a distinct Black aesthetic, often emerging from literal blackness with fragmented language and erasure.

The exhibition will display large-scale drawings in gold ink on black paper alongside abstract paintings in various hues, some featuring fragments of language. Pendleton aims to create a dialogical space that "upends" expectations and allows viewers to find themselves within the work.

Concurrently, Pendleton has a show, "Adam Pendleton: Love, Queen," at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Both exhibitions explore his approach to abstraction primarily through painting, delving into how the discipline evolves over time.

Pendleton's interest in language as art stems from his youth, encountering writers like Adrienne Rich and Toni Morrison. He believes art, like a book, can cast a spell and enact profound change, citing Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" as an example of how reduction can unleash unlimited potential.

His artistic process often begins with a black ground, which he describes as announcing space rather than a surface. This contrasts with white grounds, drawing parallels with artists like Cy Twombly, whom Pendleton admires for his expressive marks and warmth.

Pendleton also draws inspiration from graffiti, appreciating its ability to create unnoticed visual environments. He sees his work as existing between legibility and illegibility, language and non-language, much like urban markings. He views his presence as a Black American artist in a European museum as a political act, opening dialogue and claiming space alongside historically significant artists.

"Black Dada" remains central to his practice, offering freedom and playfulness. Pendleton describes it as a way to "be bad," to make noise, and to engage with the "overwhelming freedom of blackness" without being overly self-serious. He is astonished by the absurdity of existence, infusing his art with a sense of untethered wildness.