High low culture and the sickly sweetness of Tootsie Rolls: Derrick Adams in London

‘The show feels very American,’ says Baltimore-born, New York-based artist Derrick Adams, upon the opening of Situation Comedy at Gagosian London. ‘It’s the American within me but in a more fantastical, perverse manner.’

Pervasive themes of Black Americana are gently subverted throughout a show which, on the face of it, is a bright, joyful capturing of everyday life. Easter eggs lay in wait for excited children, a cherry pie is ready to be eaten, a woman prepares to drink the Kool-Aid and another sports a sickly sweet Tootsie Rolls hairstyle. But look closer, and there’s slyly observant undertones questioning the religious rituals.

Take the painting, Good Egg, Bad Bunny. ‘I was thinking about the subject matter, and participating in ceremonial things,’ says Adams. ‘Easter is a holiday that people celebrate, like a pageantry day, people dressing up. And I always think about the thing that's the most innocent, but also could be presented as the most bizarre. When you get to be an adult, you think, why did we do it like that when we were kids? We were trained. It makes no sense. You start to rethink your life and all the things people blindly participate in.’

Throughout, motifs from everyday life are intertwined with cultural and historical symbols, whether as in reference to the art history canon seen in the Michaelango-esque figure in Baked In, or in Fantastic Voyage which features vessels depicting faces. Created by Black, unrecorded potters in the American South in the nineteenth century, they incorporate a rich history of African art and ritual objects.

‘I assert certain things into the work that I believe are significant for people to see, but I don't give an explanation for why they are in the work, or how you should interact with the work. I've been really fixated on these faith vessels, which are a very American object which was first created and founded by enslaved Africans who would make them as placeholders, putting them upon graves of deceased people. There's many different reasons for making them, but one documented reason is that they believed all these exaggerated faces would be a more effective way to ward off evil spirits. I was exposed to these objects because my family members collected them, and I wanted to reintroduce them here in a way for people to be curious as to what they are, as objects and historically as important artifacts. I wanted to present them in a way that would also be contemporary.’

In a characteristically playful move, the vessels appear again in Sweetening the Pot, although here they’re cups filled with Kool-Aid in a domestic environment, juxtaposed against bright, Pop Art references.

Colour throughout is bold, defined through flat, Cubist-inspired facets, lending a surreality to quotidian scenes in an overblown aping of reality. ‘[The style] started when I was in grad school,’ says Adams. ‘I was collecting these African tourist sculptures from local merchants, and what I liked about them was how different they were fom the authentic African sculptures. They were kind of, off. They weren't as creatively or considerately done. Some of them were very extreme in their craftsmanship. But I liked that, and I felt like this way was more humanistic, because it's how people are. Everyone isn’t defined the same way - they aren’t crafted the same.’

‘Situation Comedy’ at Gagosian London until March 22nd 2024

gagosian.com