“What kinds of artworks can be made without a body?” asks Dave McKenzie. “And do we really want to find out?”
Performing in the exhibition The Living Years: Art after 1989, which features a work by McKenzie recently acquired by the Walker, the artist ponders questions that go beyond religion’s quest for transcendence, beyond “the cloud”—that great promise of technology—and beyond a culture obsessed with the image of an image. Informed by humble actions and everyday circumstances, he explores public space in relation to the private self in performance as well as video works, sculpture, and installation. His modest, often humorous proposals reveal social and political truths that are an integral part of the world around us.
Born 1977 in Kingston, Jamaica, McKenzie graduated from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, P.S.1 National Studio Program, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. He lives and works in Brooklyn.