CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/27/2014

Brian Dailey: America in Color Launches at the LAABF

This week at the LA Art Book Fair, OSMOS Books and photographer Brian Dailey launch the America in Color Poster Project, ongoing through February 3 throughout Los Angeles. Dailey will sign copies of the book at the OSMOS booth (E3) on Saturday, February 1 at 2PM.

At a time when the country is being portrayed as divided into two ideological camps, Brian Dailey's photographic series, America in Color, turns a spotlight on the individuals who make up our true political electorate -- defying stereotypes in its diversity and finding similarities among strangers.

From the city center of Los Angeles to the open range in Texas, Brian Dailey organized impromptu photo shoots with more than 1200 citizens. In the portraits each individual expresses their personal identity casually in dress and pose, while their political identity is expressed more formally through the selection of a colored backdrop: blue for Democrat, red for Republican, grey for Independent, green for the Green Party and yellow for those who don’t vote.

The resulting book, America in Color (OSMOS, 2013), launches in Los Angeles with a week-long poster project. On Saturday, February 1st at 2 PM, publisher Cay Sophie Rabinowitz hosts a book signing with the artist in OSMOS Booth E03, LA Art Book Fair at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.

The coinciding and widely dispersed public art installation of Dailey’s portraits will provoke thoughts and discussion about political diversity, identity and the character of democracy. Throughout the week, large scale poster versions of Dailey's portraits featuring individuals and their political affiliations from across the country will be installed at intersections, on bill boards, on construction walls, and buildings -- widely dispersed on routes throughout Los Angeles -- to provoke thoughts and discussion about political diversity, identity and the character of a democracy.

BRIAN DAILEY received his MFA in Conceptual Art and Painting from Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in International Relations from University of Southern California. Throughout the 1970s, he exhibited in Los Angeles staging conceptual performances and installations. In the 1980s, Dailey relocated to Washington DC where he worked on international security policy and arms control. Currently Brian resides and makes art in Virginia. This is his first book with OSMOS.

6666 Ranch, Somewhere outside of Panhandle, Texas, Photo: Dana Bowden.

OSMOS is a fully integrated international program of curatorial and editorial activities producing OSMOS Books, OSMOS Magazine and even an OSMOS Preserves collection. The project space OSMOS Address resides in an East Village Manhattan storefront that was once the local saloon frequented by Emma Goldman and other radicals.