Cage Dies Bird Flies ↬ 27 March - 5 April 2015
The Vanderbilt Republic is pleased to announce the inaugural show of
the 9th Street Phenomenon at Gowanus Loft — Cage Dies Bird Flies,
a serial work by Dale Williams (2014 printmaking/drawing/book arts NYFA fellow),
in collaboration with Ben Miller (2014-15 Radcliffe Institute fellow).
Cage Dies Bird Flies is a multi-phase project that consists of 81 paintings with associated performance.
All 81 paintings will be included in this installation, with curation & lighting design by George Del Barrio.
At the 27 March opening Williams and Miller will perform CDBF—Showers of Laughter and Tears,
a quasi-vaudevillian subterfuge based on the paintings. An artist talk will follow the performance.
Each painting presents imagery and unique typography inspired by Miller’s stories.
The texts are short - three to seven words. Whimsical and absurdly comic,
in the paintings the miniscule narratives are transformed, revealing a darker world.
Williams has said he views himself as “a character in a Beckett story, fumbling over and over with
the simplest of elements – the texts – trying to fix them into an existential equation.”
Williams & Miller came to view the painted words as musical score;
the imagery as characterization, stage direction.
A debut performance was given in 2014 at {Re}HAPPENING on the campus of
the old Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina.
CAGE DIES BIRD FLIES
81 paintings by
DALE WILLIAMS
based on texts by
BEN MILLER
curation & lighting design
GEORGE DEL BARRIO
[ Doors 6.30p Performance 7.30p Artist Talk 9.30p — 27 March 2015 at Gowanus Loft ]