The young artist Adam Pendleton is currently making waves with performances, paintings and installations in which he critically examines our interpretation of history and culture. His work is often describe as ‘conceptual’ or even ‘complicated’, thanks to his frequent use of texts both from his own hand and derived from Afro-American literature, music and pop culture. Is Pendleton ridiculing the clichés about black culture, collecting them like a sociologist, or is he trying to initiate a more subtle way of thinking about language and identity? Time to let him speak for himself.
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London is filled with voices. Headphones whisper for attention, opera singers rehearse screams from horror movies and in the bookshop someone makes the most incredible sounds, whilst reading from a book on postmodernism. The corridor behind the entrance is taken over by conversation pieces in sound, text and image that merge with the voices of visitors walking past.
