Baahng Gallery is pleased to present WORDS: A Global Conversation, Brian Dailey’s creative summation of 7-year odyssey (2012-2019) that took him to 120 countries.  Working in an international geopolitical landscape undergoing tumultuous and historic changes over the evolution of this project, Dailey visited public and private venues on all 7 continents.  The exhibition is the inauguralof the project in its entirety and showcases WORDS MULTIMEDIA installation and WORDS ON WORDS, a 13 lenticular- print series.  This exhibition is Dailey’s second solo show with the gallery and will run from February 11 thru March 17, 2020, accompanied with opening reception on Tuesday, February 11, 6-8pm, and Artist Talk on March 3, Tuesday, 5:30pm. 

WORDS is the artist’s investigation into the impact of globalization and its effect on key human structures of language, society, culture, and environment.In each country, Dailey set up his camera with green-screen backdrop and invited random individuals.  Participants were asked 13 words in their native languages: peace, war, love, environment, freedom, religion, democracy, government, happiness, socialism, capitalism, future, and United States.  Each person responded—in a single word—with a first impression andselected a background flag reflecting his or her societal allegiance.  WORDS MULTIMEDIA is a time-based artand engages the viewers in present day issues while invoking a communal sense among global citizens.  In WORDS on WORDS, distinct single-word responses are layered in an immeasurable array of colors enhanced by the lenticular 3D effect. Interjecting his voice in a collaborative manner with the project’s participants, Dailey creates iconoclastic yet playful statements reminiscent of Dada and Surrealist word play. 

Born 1951 in California, Brian Dailey earned MFA from Otis Art Institute in 1975 and Ph.D. from University of Southern California in 1987 and participated in the pioneering creative experimentation defining the prolific artistic milieu in California in this era.  His early career launched him on a path that—before his full circle back to his arts in 2008—took him through a twenty-year interlude working on arms control and international security.  These unusual experiences were a fertile source of inspiration in his idiosyncratic art practice. With dual citizenship of USA and New Zealand, He lives and works in the Washington D.C. and in Woodstock, Virginia.  His selected solo exhibitions include at Katzen Arts Center, American University Museum in Washington D.C., in 2018 and his mid-career retrospective at Bulgaria’s National Art Gallery in Sofia in 2014. The evocative videoJIKAI was screened on multiple synchronized monitors in New York City in February, 2014, as the featured video in the Times Square Midnight Moment series; a project of ART PRODUCTION FUND. Brian Dailey is represented by Baahng Gallery.