BRAD KAHLHAMER: LET'S WALK WEST Organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art In conjunction with the Heard Museum Let's Walk West is, as the title suggests, a journey - a wayward tale told by Brad Kahlhamer that he shares with us through his paintings, texts, music, and photographs. The journey begins with an early childhood intervention by the The Indian Adoption Project, a relocation and assimilation effort practiced in the late 1950s. Kahlhamer was taken from his native home and natural mother in Arizona and placed with a couple of German descent. By the age of 13 the family moved to Wisconsin. Years later efforts to identify his birth mother of no result, and Kahlhamer embarked on the journey logged within this work. Kahlhamer studied art in college where he adopted the abstraction that remains core to his paintings. Not ready to settle, he then spent the next decade traveling the country as a road musician. In 1982 he moved to New York, intent upon becoming a visual artist. He soon found work in Brooklyn as an art director for The Topps Company, known for Bazooka Bubble Gum, where he met the well-known comic/cartoon artist Art Spiegelman. This association introduced cartoon imagery to his developing vernacular and it quickly found its way into his painting. Laced through the rigorous abstraction that Kahlhamer had already mastered, these graphic renderings make for the myth-like narrative that is the raveling and unraveling of Kahlhamer's personal story-something he calls a "third place," neither fully of the present nor of the past, neither of the White nor the Native worlds. Organized by Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in conjunction with the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona this exhibition includes recent work from the studio and a residency in Arizona sponsored by the Heard, photographs, and historical artifacts. The installation (approximately 2600 sq. ft.) consists of a predella of his documentary photographs of Native American gatherings; 15 large works, including paintings made during the residency and works from his first Arizona foray; late 19th-century ledger books and artifacts from the Heard's collection; texts from journals and song lyrics inscribed on the walls; and an ambient soundtrack. The installation will carry into 3 dimensions the map-like notation of his painting: clusters of words and images can be deployed at various levels throughout a gallery space. The exhibition participations fee is $8,500 plus pro-rated shipping and travel expenses and honorarium for Kahlhamer to oversee the installation. Ten promotional copies of the accompanying catalog (88 pages with a critical essay by Susan Krane) are included as well as support material for press and programming purposes. The images included in this proposal are not the actual works to be included in the show but closely representative of the works in progress. Additional information and visuals are available upon request. CURRENT VENUE Sandra and David Bakalar Gallery Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA Feb. 10 - March 23, 2005 back to top