Brian Dailey Gallery Opening

The Margaret W. and Joseph L. Fisher Gallery presents Brian Dailey’s “America in Color” and “WORDS,” January 12 through March 3.

America in Color

Over the course of a two-year period, Brian Dailey traveled across the country with an objective of capturing individual portraits of the uncelebrated American electorate. From Jackson Square in downtown New Orleans to the open ranch in Texas he organized impromptu photo shoots with more than 1,200 citizens, including those with no interest in politics or voting. In the portraits each individual expresses their personal identity, casually in dress and pose, while their political identity is expressed more formally through the selection of a colored backdrop: blue for Democrat, red for Republican, grey for Independent, Green for the Green Party, and yellow for those who don’t vote. The resulting monograph, Brian Dailey: America in Color, challenges our perceptions of the component and individual characters that shape the American political process.

WORDS

Brian Dailey’s towering, multi­ screen video installation, WORDS , a creative summation of an odyssey that took him to nearly 90 countries over the course of six years, is the artist’s investigation into the impact of globalization on the interrelation between language, culture, and environment. Each of the 13 screens display a video composite of selected single-word responses in participants’ native languages to one of the thirteen words around which this project evolves: peace, war, love, environment, freedom, religion, democracy, government, happiness, socialism, capitalism, future, and the United States.

About the Artist

Brian Dailey (MFA, Otis Art Institute, 1975: PhD, International Relations, University of Southern California, 1987) is an American artist noted for his careers in both art and international relations. His work in a variety of mediums-including photography, film, installations, and painting-engages with the social, political, and cultural issues of our times and is not easily categorized. Dailey’s art reflects his unconventional evolution as an artist and multifaceted life experiences, which include national level involvement in arms control, space policy, intelligence systems, and international security.