Dan Westlake
Etc.
News
(13.02.10)
Dan Westlake is curating a group exhibition featuring 11 artists exploring the nature of Time from a variety of perspectives including the social, philosophical and scientific. Utilising a variety of strategies and media including interactive software, sculpture, digital print, performance, sound and text this exhibition will feature new works by:
Paul Abbott
Kate Barsby
Josh Baum
Peter Caul
Stephanie Dickinson
Tracy Gentles
Alan Jones
Carlos Monleon Gendall
Beatrice Loft Schulz
Emily Paige Short
Dan WestlakePrivate View
6:00pm - 8:30pm Friday 19th of February
Exhibition open daily from 11am - 5pm
20th until the 26th FebruaryWe Are Arts Gallery, First Floor Red Lion Square
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Southampton Row, WC1B 4AP(16.01.10)
'In Out' a publication featuring a piece of work by Dan Westlake is currently the Institute of Contemerery Arts featured 'zine of the week. It cost just £3. It can be purchased at the ICA shop at The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH or at their online by following this link.
(12.01.10)
Dan Westlake is curently participaiting in ArtSpace2010: a project space realised by a selection of MA Fine Art students at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design. The space will be active during the month of January 2010 as open studios, information hub, and live art venue culminating in a group show between the 22nd and 29th of the month.Artspace 2010 is at ArtSpace2010 @The Factory, 27 Camden High Street NW1 7JE and is made possible by the generous support of Camden Town Unlimited and Camden Council.
Artist Statement
My interventions and installations employ a variety of media and strategies including text, sound, print and oral discourse as means of open communication. This praxis occupies a space informed by a theoretical position that views creative practice as, in essence, a process of affirmation through communication, and a theological position, based on research into negative theology and Zen Buddhism, that authentic emancipation can only be experienced outside of languages’ binary-structures. This raises a central ethical aporia existing as the fulcrum of my practice: communication without a communicated - it being inevitable that in any communication a something will be, or will be perceived to be, communicated, and that this something cannot avoid enmeshment within a network of linguistic systemization; a process antipathetic to authentic liberation. This central paradox is negotiated as a space transcending our network of binary-oppositions is opened up through an exploration of the (im)possibilities of a purely phatic mode of communication. This privileging of absence over presence acts as a tactic of destabilization occupying a meditative gap existing in the relationship between linguistic cognition and, what we might term, the Absolute. Often employing language itself as a pharmacia, I embrace the aesthetic issues that arise in semi-dematerialized practice by appropriating the syntax of modernist graphic design and minimalism while exploiting the ephemera of the everyday – i.e. our everyday existence within advanced capitalist societies. By creating explicitly open-work the production of a horizontal and non-authoritarian sphere of engagement is facilitated.
c.v
2005-2008: BA Fine Art/New Media. Chelsea College of Art and Design (London)
2007-2007: Study Exchange. Cooper Union: School of Art (NYC)
1993-2004: Graphic Designer for music industry and Club/Bar DJ (London/NYC)
1991-1993: BA Graphic Design. Brighton University (Brighton)
1989-1991: Foundation. Chelsea College Of Art and Design (London)
Selected International Exhibitions:
Exchange Show 07: (co-curator) The Great Hall Gallery, Cooper Union, East Village, NYC, USA (May 2007)
EYSE:The Foundation Building, Cooper Union School of Art, East Village, NYC, USA (May 2007)
Untitled: Spencer Sweeney Studio, LES, NYC, USA (May 2007)
Venir: Arendal, Norway (July 2006)
Selected UK Exhibitions:
Some You Win, Some Deleuze: 'Collective', 27 Camden High Street NW1 (Jan 10)
Take it as Read: Stroud House Gallery, Station Road, Stroud (Nov 08)
En Rote: Nolias Gallery, The Thomas Becket, 320 Old Kent Rd, London (Nov 08)
Gross Clinic - Contemporary Poster Art: Space, Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries, Portsmouth (Sept 08)
Degree Show 08: Chelsea College of Art & Design, London (June 08)
Live Sonic Arts Event: (curator) S.U Bar, Chelsea College of Art & Design, London (Dec 06)
AtelierTransPal: Parade Ground, Chelsea College of Art & Design, London (Nov 06)
The Stannary Show: 33 Stannary Street, Oval (June 2006)
This Way Up: Temporarycontemporary, Old Seager Distillery, Deptford, London (May 2006)
The Cigarettes & Alcohol Show: (Co-curator of group show/Installation) The Spread Eagle Public (Jan 2006)
Video Work displayed on site at Chelsea College of Art and Design (Dec 2005)
Video Installation displayed on site at Chelsea College of Art and Design (May 2005)
First Time: Group Show on site at Chelsea College of Art and Design (Nov 2005)
Published Works:
A Brief History of Art: From Production to Annihilation
Piece theorizing arts trajectory as being one from presence to absence.
ArtArtArt (Spring 09) Matt Roberts ArtsUntitled (Oxymoron)
Text based piece featured in collaborative journal produced as part of the 'Ending Feminist Futures; Where is Feminism Now' conference held at Aberdeen University.
In/Out (Oct 2008) University of AberdeenDo Not Open This Book
Artist book held by Special Collections: Artist Book Collection Chelsea College of Art and Design Library.
(June 08) Self PublishedUnderground New York; Cross Cultural Connections 1975-1985
Article exploring the cross cultural connections between dance music, club culture and in New York's 'downtown' scene.
Less Common More Sense (Sept 07) University of the Arts London
Work held in Collections:
'Do Not Open This Book'
Special Collections:
Artist Book Collection
Chelsea College of Art and Design Library
16 John Islip Street
London