CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/26/2019

Black Dada, Malcolm X and the refusal of representation in 'Adam Pendleton: Our Ideas'

“Untitled” (2017) is reproduced from Our Ideas, launching tonight with a reading and conversation at Mast Books. Exquisitely made by Pace Gallery, this volume collects work from several series, including Black Dada and System of Display, Untitled (A Victim of American Democracy), as well as a video portrait of Yvonne Rainer. Works form the Untitled series revisit a section from Malcolm X’s 1964 speech, The Ballot or the Bullet, which reads, more presciently than ever, “I’m one of the 22 million black victims of the Democrats. One of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism. And when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat or a Republican. I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy—all we’ve seen is hypocrisy.”