In a special collaboration, Arcade and Ellen de Bruijne Projects are pleased to present a solo exhibition of the work of Jeremiah Day. The exhibition coincides with Citoyenne Reprise, an exhibition of Day’s collaborative works at Netwerk Aalst. The opening serves as the launch of If It’s For The People, It Needs To Be Beautiful, She Said, the first major publication on Jeremiah Day’s work, designed and co-edited with Will Holder and the culmination of Day’s multi-year project of the same title.
Day’s work – through photography, performance, text and installation – represents a consistent investigation into art’s capacity for the civic, one materialised through subjective traces and a personal narrative style that grounds political thinking in tender experience. From 2014-2019, Day focused almost exclusively on live performance, producing a series of slide-show performances, often with musician Bart de Kroon, combining improvised movement and text with documentary investigations into military bases, anti-war organising efforts, historic and contemporary town-meeting forms. Day’s recent work focuses on structures of group improvisation in which political themes are explored through forms of production which themselves propose models of working and struggling together.
On view in Brussels will be two larger projects that resonate with the events of the last year: LA Homicide from 2010 and The Frank Church – River Of No Return Wilderness, 2012-14. During the exhibition, the Pete & Repeat space will contain selections of Day’s publications produced with longtime collaborator’s Fred Dewey and Simone Forti amongst others, as well as books, records and objects from the broader “company” that Day constitutes through and around his work.
LA Homicide is a work in two parts – photographs with hand-written text and an improvisational speaking/movement performance – two juxtaposed and interwoven methods of description, Day’s own “personal noir.” Typically the vast majority of crimes go unreported by major media, and in Los Angeles only 5-10% of murders are described in print or television. As an experiment, in 2007 the Los Angeles Times began a web-log that would attempt to at least list each murder in the city. In his work Day takes up the sprawling anecdotes of the Homicide Report as a found novel, a text that serves as a point of departure, map, and epic poem of the city.
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness draws together years of research and studio performance into a contemporary ode to the example of US Senator Frank Church. A widely forgotten figure, Church resurfaced to public attention in the wake of the revelations of Edward Snowden. In the 1970’s Church led a series of investigations into the political practices of the United States, including the harassment of Martin Luther King Jr, assassination plots of foreign political leaders, and the development of mass surveillance.
The title of this work is taken from the name of a wilderness reserve in Idaho, named in honour of United States Senator Frank Church, who had ironically used those exact words to warn of crossing over a “bridge of no return,” and this word play becomes the point of departure and hinge for Day’s evocation of Church, his investigation and his subsequent failed Presidential run. The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness was originally produced in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam as part of their 2012 reopening exhibition and was subsequently presented at the Centre George Pompidou in Paris.
The title of the exhibition is drawn from Day’s 2005 collaborative performance with the band We vs. Death, documentation of which is available to be screened upon request.
For further information please contact:
Christian Mooney | christian@thisisarcade.art
In loving memory of our dear friend Fred Dewey
Los Angeles Times Obituary
Fred Dewey
Resistance Poster
2014
LA Homicide
2010
photographs with hand written text, neon, video
LA Homicide
2010
photographs with hand written text, neon, video
LA Homicide: The Jungle
2010
pigment ink-jet print, ink
190 x 150 cm
(detail)
LA Homicide: Robert Lomell
2010
cibachrome
42 x 34 cm
LA Homicide
2010
photographs with hand written text, neon, video
Video Still:
Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam, NL 10.10.2010
La Homicide: Watts Riots; Rodney King Verdict, Riots;
LAPD Rampart Scandal; Homicide Report Blog
2010
pigment ink-jet print, indian ink
190 x 107 cm
La Homicide: Watts Riots; Rodney King Verdict, Riots;
LAPD Rampart Scandal; Homicide Report Blog
2010
pigment ink-jet print, indian ink
190 x 107 cm
(detail)
LA Homicide: Boyle Heights I,
A Piece of the Continent, A Part of the Main
2010
cibachrome
80 x 67.5 cm
LA Homicide
2010
photographs with hand written text, neon, video
LA Homicide: South-Central II
2010
cibachrome
170 x 72 cm
LA Homicide: Liquor Store Gods
2010
neon 170 cm, type c-print
78.5 x 75 cm
LA Homicide: Liquor Store Gods
2010
neon 170 cm, type c-print
78.5 x 75 cm
(detail)
LA Homicide
2010
photographs with hand written text, neon, video
LA Homicide: John Doe #51
2010
laser print, acrylic paint
30.5 x 40.5 cm
LA Homicide
2010
photographs with hand written text, neon, video
LA Homicide:
Reynaud Cage Jr., 48 and Yancy Cage, 39; April 3, 2010
2010
cibachrome, ink
41.5 x 34 cm
LA Homicide:
Reynaud Cage Jr., 48 and Yancy Cage, 39; April 3, 2010
2010
cibachrome, ink
41.5 x 34 cm
(detail)
La Homicide:
Pacific Coast Highway / Graffiti / Graffiti Remover I
2010
cibachrome
73 x 60 cm
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness
2012 – 2015
wallpainting, photographs with hand written text, video, drawings, archive material
The Frank Church River of no Return Wilderness:
Vote Corruption Out! | Horses
2021
type c print
40 x 40 cm
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness
2012 – 2015
wall painting, photographs, video, performance, drawings, archive material
(Installation detail)
Hand-written text on photograph
(bottom left corner of white border):
hearings
arguments
polemics
after – the – fact
within the facts, surrounded by them
– the forest is so large they don’t
put out the fires, just let them
burn
no memorial, just this one
(best that I could do)
origin of a question
destination of an answer
understanding, in public, as action
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness
2012 – 2015
wall painting, photographs, video, performance, drawings, archive material
(Installation detail)
Hand-written text on photograph
(bottom right of white border):
The Church-Reports were like a rumor
– around the Panthers,
or Chile, MLK, darkness.
A copy impossible to find
(until the internet)
the author was/is forgotten, except
probably to the 900.000 people
who wanted him for President,
who voted for the promise “means are as important, as ends”
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness
2012 – 2015
(Video still)
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness
2012 – 2015
(Video still)
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness
2012 – 2015
wallpainting, photographs with hand written text, video, drawings, archive material
Archive material
Courtesy of the Frank Church Papers,
Boise State University,
Special Collections Department Idaho, US
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness:
Like in a Break Up
(Performance Notation – February 27, 2015, Arratia Beer)
2015
ink on paper
42 x 56 cm
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness:
(Performance Notation – February 27, 2015, Arratia Beer)
2015
ink on paper
42 x 56 cm
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness:
Public by Definition
(Performance Notation – February 27, 2015, Arratia Beer)
2015
ink on paper
42 x 56 cm
Publications and materials from Jeremiah Day’s collaborators inc:
Fred Dewey
Simone Forti
Alisa Margolis
Can Altay
Aaron Hughes
Publications and materials from Jeremiah Day’s collaborators inc:
Fred Dewey
Simone Forti
Alisa Margolis
Can Altay
Aaron Hughes
Does posterity need community or vice versa?
(Lailye Weidman at Contact Quartley Office)
2020
pigment print with hand-written text.
50 x 60 cm
(detail)
Does posterity need community or vice versa?
Ornette Coleman note, Contact Quarterly archive
2020
pigment prints with and written text
50 x 60 cm
Publications and materials from Jeremiah Day’s collaborators inc:
Fred Dewey
Simone Forti
Alisa Margolis
Can Altay
Aaron Hughes
Does posterity need community or vice versa?
Contact Improv class / SNDO archive
2020
pigment prints with and written text
50 x 60 cm
Does posterity need community or vice versa?
And wheelchairs, and babies / Contact Quartley archive
2020
pigment prints with and written text
50 x 60 cm
Does posterity need community or vice versa?
Seascape / SNDO archive
2020
pigment prints with and written text
50 x 60 cm
Does posterity need community or vice versa?
Seascape / SNDO archive
2020
pigment prints with and written text
50 x 60 cm