DERRICK ADAMS: SITUATION COMEDY
Gagosian is pleased to announce Situation Comedy, an exhibition of new paintings by Derrick Adams.
February 13 - March 29, 2025
Composed with brightly hued, faceted planes of acrylic paint and fabric collage, Adams’s paintings present visions of Black Americana through figures engaged in everyday leisure and enlivened by individual daydreams and fantasies. The paintings convey seriocomic moments of conflict and resolution that draw from the narrative strategies of television sitcoms and movies, sharing a sense of humor and familiarity integral to the genre. They reflect the significance of pop culture and comedy in defining the joys and contradictions of contemporary life.
Each painting has elements of comedic storytelling, establishing situations starring imagined characters and humorous juxtapositions, before landing the punchline. Good Egg, Bad Bunny (2024) relays a nostalgic vision of Easter from a child’s perspective, with an egg hunt and a life-size chocolate bunny that has been conspicuously nibbled. An older woman holding a palm leaf highlights the intersection of the holiday’s communal and commercial aspects with ritualistic and religious meanings.
Baked In (2024) centers on a man lying on a gingham-patterned placemat or picnic blanket at an ambiguous scale, his body overlaid by a pie in a humorous take on Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. He holds flags and fireworks that symbolize the celebration of Independence Day in the United States, while flies and ants invade the scene. Only Happy Thoughts (2024) pictures a contented woman dreaming of a hairstyle composed of Tootsie Roll candies, embodying a sweetness that is both pure and excessive.
In so doing, Adams combines the aesthetics of contemporary consumerism with that of America’s national symbol. Writer Folasade Ologundudu further connects the painting to the myth of Ganymede in Homer’s Iliad and its representation by artists from Rembrandt to Robert Rauschenberg, interpreting it as a multifaceted work that is rife with contradictions.