PAST CURRENT FUTURE H PROJECT SPACE

Curated by Brian Curtin

Bangkok, Thailand. H Project Space is very pleased to announce an installation by Dennis Balk, following his celebrated exhibition at Gallery VER in Bangkok during 2011.

With Desert Camp, Balk continues his exploration of relationships between politics, ideology and theatrical rhetoric. The installation evokes a site once occupied by a remarkably confused group of ideologues or political misfits, whose abandoned materials are a schizophrenic mix of references and politicized imagery. Additionally, the periphery of the installation is infused with other material ephemera that both complicates and extends questions of precisely who the former inhabitants were and how any audience might relate to this elusive agenda.

Further complicating matters, Balk has placed in the exhibition limited edition merchandise, which was produced in collaboration with the artist’s sometime design collective ‘Splinter Group International’. This collective describes its work as post-contemporary and includes fashion and accessory production. Visitors to Desert Camp may leave wondering if Balk is concerned with legitimate political critique or merely spinning an elaborate display for merchandise…

Dennis Balk is an educator, visual artist, writer and playwright based primarily in New York. He is Chairperson of the Computer Graphics/ Multimedia Department at Bangkok University International and has taught in the Arabian Gulf and at Università IUAV di Venezia, Yale University, and the University of California at Los Angeles. Since the late 80s his work has addressed multiple formats and the social conditions of narrative. Balk exhibits widely, including a survey at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2009). Publications include particles + waves with plausibility (2006), Colin de Land, American Fine Arts (2008) and Dennis Balk/1890-2090 (2010).