Known for his multi-disciplinary performances, sculptures, and videos, Dave McKenzie is a keen observer of the ways in which larger truths are embedded in words and images from everyday life. Are images still powerful? What is the role of the individual to the social body? McKenzie believes that no matter how saturated we are by images, they remain an invaluable tool for the historian, student, artist, and activist to address basic questions about our place in the world. An Intermission features a newly conceived project in the form of translucent banners. Based on archival and contemporary sources, the banners will occupy a space within the museum to publicly address the rereading and re-interpretation of images in the wake of recent social and political events. McKenzie’s wide-reaching dissection of contemporary culture is further demonstrated in four recent videos, in which Henry Kissinger, Queen Nefertiti, Dora the Explorer, and a life-size Andy Warhol doll all make appearances.
Selected solo exhibitions include the Wien Lukatsch in Berlin (2015); the Aspen Art Museum in Aspen, Colorado (2010); REDCAT in Los Angeles, California (2008); and The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts (2007). Selected group exhibitions include the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2014); Radical Presence: Black Performance In Contemporary Art at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas (traveling to the Grey Art Gallery in New York City; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota); Blues for Smoke at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; and Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio (2013); The Ungovernables, 2012 New Museum Triennial at the New Museum in New York City (2012); At Home/Not At Home: Works From the Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg at the CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (2010); The Absolutely Otherat The Kitchen in New York City. (2010); 30 Seconds off an Inch at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2009); and Prospect.1 New Orleans International Biennial in New Orleans, Louisiana (2008).
Awards and honors include the Gorham P. Stevens/Jacob H. Lazarus-Metropolitan Museum of Art Rome Prize (2014); the Guna S. Mundheim Visual Arts Fellowship, The American Academy in Berlin (2011); the USA Rockefeller Fellowship, United States Artists (2009); The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2005); and Artist in Residence, The Studio Museum in Harlem (2003). McKenzie received a BFA in printmaking from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2000.
Funding provided by UAlbany’s Office of the President and Office of the Provost, The University at Albany Foundation, and University Auxiliary Services. Made possible in part with public funds from The NYS Council on the Arts’ Electronic Media and Film Presentation Funds grant program, administered by The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes.
