February 3, 2015
"We celebrate ruins because they offer a doorway into the past. If we use our imaginations to supply the missing elements, we can step into a majesty which once was. We can experience a brief and shining moment, a whisp of fleeting glory without the knowledge of what comes next. Standing among the ruins we know that out of them rises a nobility that could not have been realized otherwise. Ruins simultaneously share the past, present and future." - Daniel Dallabrida... Read More
January 31, 2015
Setting an exhibition is like creating a theatre piece. I try to consider the viewer’s experience from before they walk through the door until they are at home musing on what they have seen. It is a creative process as important as making the art itself. So, here are some images from the days leading up to the opening of Building the Noble Ruin at the Patton-Mallot and Gideon Gartner Galleries at Anderson Ranch Art Center.
Under the direction of Joshua Meier, Studio Coordinator for Painting & Printmaking the show came together beautifully.
It starts with bare walls, spackle, paint… Read more
December 15, 2014
During times of war or plague, the terror of insistent, unpredictable death lives among us. There is no pause for recovery. We come to expect loss upon loss. Hope is hidden away so it will not die. The unreleased rage, disenfranchised grief and unsorted identity of post-crisis existence reverberates across generations. To rebuild and re-imagine community, we share our stories with courage and we listen without judgement.... Read More
March 1, 2014
I’m honored that curator Ivan Acebo-Choy selected an image from my installation Upon Reflection (Parking Lot) 1985-2014 for his exhibition, I Am My Own Landscape. Choosing from the New York Visual AIDS online collection, Acebo-Choy gathered portraiture in which human presence is not searching for a place to sing, a site to conquer or a view to contemplate.... Read More
February 5, 2014
Darin Klein & Friends Present: Box of Books, Vol. VII, a curated collection of twenty-three fold-out artist books was released earlier this month at the LA Art Book Fair,at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. My contribution, Upon Reflection, was presented along with those of Bruno Fazzolari, Amelia Ishmael and Nicholas Sung. Darin Klein & Friends Present: Box of Books, Vol. VII (edition of 150, signed and numbered) is now available through Darin Klein & Friends. Very few, if any, of this edition remain unsold.... Read More
April 9, 2013
Nestled high in the Rockies, Anderson Ranch is a place like no other. The facilities and studios are state-of-the-art. The year-round Ranch staff, artists themselves, are encyclopedic in the knowledge and infinitely patient with their support. The twelve other Residents and I were provided with a large studio space, technical assistance, 4-star meals and a small room that Fra Angelico would have envied. This isolated, monastic incubator brews a community of interaction, conceptual development and intense production of art.... Read More
December 15, 2012
The Visual AID Pillows Project offers a curated collection of limited edition pillows developed to support Bay Area artists facing life-threatening illness. With art from myself, Rex Ray, Peter Max Lawrence, Annie Sprinkle, Daniel Goldstein and more, the Pillow Project advances the local efforts of Visual AID, which for 25 years has been an integral part of San Francisco’s network of activism.... Read More
April 15, 2012
In these works, Dallabrida appropriates the contemporary street advertising of queer dances, parties, bars and sex clubs. He layers these offerings of camp, beef, play and seduction over a substrata of unfired porcelain and pigment. He then shrouds these panels with personal photographs from iconic 1980s gay male gatherings. These tender portraits of earlier time offer an avid juxtaposition with the uber-urban homo reality of today. Finally, Dallabrida tears back through the layers to reveal a riveting queer gaze/gayz.... Read More
April 12, 2012
In April 2012, co-curators Nick Johnson and Toyin Odutola paired eleven visual artists with work from eleven writers giving us the constraint of creating new art based on the written work we received. I worked with the sparse, rhythmic poetry of Luisa Leija to create my contribution to the project, a performance and the resulting artifact in graphite, unfired porcelain, pigment, and oils on canvas, Counting On You / Conto su di te.... Read More
March 25, 2012
For those of us lucky enough to have lived through the AIDS crisis, we accept the possibility, if not the probability, of imminent death. Our time horizon shrinks. We lose our capacity to think about the past or the future. We surrender our memories. We stop telling our stories.
For those who came of age after the crisis years, we struggle to figure out who we are in the absence of mentors. We lost access to an entire generation of elders. How could we have the language to identify the impact of stepping into a community mourning in silence? We have never heard their stories. We have never shared ours.... Read More
