Dave McKenzie

Dave McKenzie

b. 1977, Kingston, Jamaica
lives in New York

In his videos, sculptures, performances, and installations, Dave McKenzie explores how public space and the private self are simultaneously alienated, connected, and restricted. At the heart of McKenzie’s diverse practice lies a poetic quest for interaction that lays bare the complications of social rules and obligations with which we navigate personal relationships. Dave McKenzie received a BFA in printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (2000) and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine. McKenzie’s recent solo exhibitions include Speeches, Speeches, Speeches, Galerie Barbara Wien, Berlin; An Intermission, University Art Museum, State University of New York, Albany; Where the Good Lord Split You, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects; Dave McKenzie, Aspen Art Museum; Screen Doors on Submarines, REDCAT, Los Angeles; and Momentum 8: Dave McKenzie, ICA Boston. McKenzie’s work has been included in several biennials and notable group exhibitions including: Soft Power, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stories of Almost Everyone, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the 2014 Whitney Biennial; Etched in Collective History, at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama; Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas; and Prospect.1, New Orleans.

Dave McKenzie, An Intermission (Don’t Care), 2016. Dye sub print on knitted polyester, 120 x 72 inches. Courtesy of Celaya Brothers Gallery