
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
- Marginalisation (ART), October 2016
- The struggle against downward mobility: Looking for a “re-evolution” in the Caesar Chavez housing projects (ESSAY),
- Silence (ART), April 2016
- Make America Silent Again (THE ESSAY),
- Homeless Christmas (The ART), January 2016
- Homeless on 34th Street, What Would Jesus Do? (The Essay),
- Bewitching Hour (The ART), October 2015
- The Bewitching Hour on the Walk of Shame: The nocturnal trenches of an American Southwest City (The Essay),
- Ghost Ride 2014 (The ART), July 2015
- Bike Shorts and Loose Crank Arms: A Cyclical love affair with a bike (The Essay), July 2015
- Pathology of poverty (The ART), April 2015
- Military Spending and the Mentally Ill: Why does our society harbor an anti-social attitude towards poverty and mental illness? (The Essay),
- Mind and its malcontents (The ART), January 2015
- Mind and its Malcontents: Gazing into a Brother’s Eyes (The Essay),
- Oft repeated – Always forgotten: Memories of 9/11 (The ART), October 2014
- Oft-repeated – Always forgotten: The uselessness of news in a Post-9/11 World (The Essay),
- The Madness of Sister Moon (Art), July 2014
- Structural Stigma in an advanced Society: Are my personal troubles really social issues?,
- Where did the American Dream disappear? Hunger and non-Anger: The Reality of the New Under-class, April 2014
- Disappearing Dreams (Art), April 2014
- Thanksgiving (Art), January 2014
- Why do we stuff ourselves with cold holiday turkey?,
- The Fields of Capital (Art), October 2013
- Driving through the fields of capital: Torn pages from an Art Handler’s Notebook,
- Estrangement of a young man, July 2013
- Self and the City: Re-cognizing My-Self on a Playground for the Super-rich, July 2013
- Mind Our Business, April 2013