Dennis Dodson

Dennis Dodson

Dennis Dodson grew up in Maryland; studied sociological theory at The New School (New York); worked in service agencies for disadvantaged populations; now lives in Colorado and uses art to make a statement.


Dennis is also a bicycle enthusiast; has travelled through various parts of USA on his bike.


(Dennis’) Dilettante Statement:


Rejecting the Kantian notion of universal truth, interpretive sociology has paid to local kinds of knowledge, discourses, rituals and forms of interaction; which has undermined the claims of normative scientific practitioners. Before postmodernism became the generic expression for a Hyper-real rupture of communication, Max Weber debated the progressive disenchantment of the world, the eradication of mystery, emotion, tradition, and the rational elements of modernity.


While living in New York City and studying at the New School For Social Research, the artist experienced the “pedagogy of the streets” while conducting an ethnographic study of marginalized populations in New York’s Meat Packing District. Through one, of a series of courses of engagement, he observed and participated in a Seminar as Spectacle. The seminar was academic, only less esoteric. He was asked not to write, but to use other senses to express the alienation of the Bohemian Paradox... This is when he decided to paint.


Art has traditionally provided a mode of expression for marginalized populations, and encodes a solidarity that challenges the conventions of power. Art is a liberating element, juxtapose to the commodity fetish of consumer culture. This is the central paradox that the artist has observed. Art is at once a space, a place and a voice for socially marginalized groups “whose protest” never succeeds in transforming the source of marginality. Operating as it does within a larger social world that shapes marginality, art loses its oppositional power, as it becomes surplus labor. However, it is also a place where one can imagine himself and find refuge from the daily presentation of self.

 

Articles by Dennis Dodson