David-Jeremiah
I
MICAH
October 13 - November 19, 2023
organized by Evan Moore
There will be no opening reception for the exhibition.
The gallery is open to the public Friday - Sunday 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm weekly.
We hope to see you soon.
checklist available here
I
Micah cuts futile political rhetoric to present a moment of reconciliation around state-sanctioned police violence through a layered public performance. The exhibition at House of Seiko consists of seven works by conceptual artist David-Jermiah tethered to a performance the artist staged in 2019 and reinvestigated in 2023. The physical component of the work, bumper stickers (bombs), borrows a strategy adopted from Milton Glaser's 1976 slogan, I NY, commissioned by the city of New York to rebrand then-derelict Manhattan and encourage tourism.
Through this amorphous idea of, David-Jeremiah interrogates this methodology of reframing (and misunderstanding?) the city of Dallas, Micah Xavier-Johsnon, as well as expanding to the nationwide epidemic of extrajudicial murder of Black people at the hands of police in America.
Micah Xavier Johnson is infamous for his 2016 targeted attack on white police officers in Dallas during protests in the wake of the police killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Johnson ultimately killed five officers and injured nine. Rather than understanding his acts within the larger context of centuries of abuse and harassment, the media quickly disintegrated the act in an effort to stoke divisive discourse lacking in historical breadth.
Projected on the gallery's left-hand wall is the suite's first video work. The initial minute and thirty-seven-second piece finds the artist stalking a series of Dallas Police squad cars affixed with the aforementioned bumper sticker. Fleeting, blurred, and astigmatic scenes build to the final sequence featuring David-Jeremiah opening the hood of his vehicle, simulating car trouble to apply the bumper sticker. Concurrently, audio from news footage of Johnson's attack plays, and the phrase, "He just killed that cop," is synchronized to the moment the application is finished.
Across from the projection is the most recent video work, an approximate three-minute revisitation of the pursuit of unknowing squad cars throughout Dallas, culminating in the final slow-motion scene of an officer identifying and caressing the sticker on his car. Both videos are presented vertically to invert the all-too-familiar experience of interacting with video documentation of police misconduct and violence. Five photographs of squad cars caught in various moments of patrol from 2019-2023 anchor the two videos. David-Jeremiah approaches his conceptual practice as a mathematician, specifically the principle of multiplying two negative integers to produce a positive. The seven works intentionally construct tension as the number seven refers to the five officers killed, Micah Xavier Johnson and God.
David-Jeremiah is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Oak Cliff, Texas. He is a recipient of the 2020 Nasher Sculpture Center Artist Grant Award. He has had numerous solo exhibitions spanning New York, The Hamptons, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas. He is a part of the Celine Collection—New Bond Street, London and their upcoming China Project. Also the Cash App Collection— Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and St. Louis. A work from his I Drive Thee series was recently acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art for their permanent collection. He has an upcoming, year-long solo project at The Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts starting early 2024.
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follow us on social media for updates.
inquiries: cole@houseofseiko.info
photography courtesy of Graham Holoch
I
MICAHOctober 13 - November 19, 2023
organized by Evan Moore
There will be no opening reception for the exhibition.
The gallery is open to the public Friday - Sunday 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm weekly.
We hope to see you soon.
checklist available here
I
Micah cuts futile political rhetoric to present a moment of reconciliation around state-sanctioned police violence through a layered public performance. The exhibition at House of Seiko consists of seven works by conceptual artist David-Jermiah tethered to a performance the artist staged in 2019 and reinvestigated in 2023. The physical component of the work, bumper stickers (bombs), borrows a strategy adopted from Milton Glaser's 1976 slogan, I NY, commissioned by the city of New York to rebrand then-derelict Manhattan and encourage tourism. Through this amorphous idea of
, David-Jeremiah interrogates this methodology of reframing (and misunderstanding?) the city of Dallas, Micah Xavier-Johsnon, as well as expanding to the nationwide epidemic of extrajudicial murder of Black people at the hands of police in America.Micah Xavier Johnson is infamous for his 2016 targeted attack on white police officers in Dallas during protests in the wake of the police killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Johnson ultimately killed five officers and injured nine. Rather than understanding his acts within the larger context of centuries of abuse and harassment, the media quickly disintegrated the act in an effort to stoke divisive discourse lacking in historical breadth.
Projected on the gallery's left-hand wall is the suite's first video work. The initial minute and thirty-seven-second piece finds the artist stalking a series of Dallas Police squad cars affixed with the aforementioned bumper sticker. Fleeting, blurred, and astigmatic scenes build to the final sequence featuring David-Jeremiah opening the hood of his vehicle, simulating car trouble to apply the bumper sticker. Concurrently, audio from news footage of Johnson's attack plays, and the phrase, "He just killed that cop," is synchronized to the moment the application is finished.
Across from the projection is the most recent video work, an approximate three-minute revisitation of the pursuit of unknowing squad cars throughout Dallas, culminating in the final slow-motion scene of an officer identifying and caressing the sticker on his car. Both videos are presented vertically to invert the all-too-familiar experience of interacting with video documentation of police misconduct and violence. Five photographs of squad cars caught in various moments of patrol from 2019-2023 anchor the two videos. David-Jeremiah approaches his conceptual practice as a mathematician, specifically the principle of multiplying two negative integers to produce a positive. The seven works intentionally construct tension as the number seven refers to the five officers killed, Micah Xavier Johnson and God.
David-Jeremiah is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Oak Cliff, Texas. He is a recipient of the 2020 Nasher Sculpture Center Artist Grant Award. He has had numerous solo exhibitions spanning New York, The Hamptons, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas. He is a part of the Celine Collection—New Bond Street, London and their upcoming China Project. Also the Cash App Collection— Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and St. Louis. A work from his I Drive Thee series was recently acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art for their permanent collection. He has an upcoming, year-long solo project at The Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts starting early 2024.
follow us on social media for updates.
inquiries: cole@houseofseiko.info
photography courtesy of Graham Holoch