I don’t know about you but I’ve been kissing these walls for want of lips to kiss in this new normal limit to intimacy unbound.
Thirty two works, thirty two pages. The installation is a book. The exhibition is a publication. The publication is entitled Kiss Emitting Die Odes. Take the corners of four rooms for booky spines and the sixteen walls for thirty two pages. Enter. Open. Exhibit. Publish. Exit. Close.
I kissed all this inanimates with my lips for resistance, in glue
wrote for want of empathic capacitors, kissing living lust
secrete cement eventual they me, to and from you
lippy kiss calligraphy, in a pout point pen of dust
Kissed lip stick glue
wrote out all this living lust
cement eventual they me and you
in a pout point pen of dust
Kissing kisses kissed glue
registration writing living lust
cement eventual they me and you
in syntactic pouts of fucking dust
Empathic capacitor kisses in dewy glue
operated with this fucking living lust
secrete cement eventual they me and you
kisses kissed in fucking dust
Kissed lip stick glue
writing this with living lust
cement eventual they me and you
in an out my petals pout to dust
for fucksake
Secrete spittle kiss oil and glue
pronounced in a alone syntax of living lust
cement eventual this new me and you
in a pout stayed in dust
Kissed with glue
and this with lust
syntax cement eventual
in a pout of dust
While the transmutation of language is particularly important to Dean’s practice, his works are not intended to be read as words, but rather to be identified as an element of language in their own form and imagined as a word or idea. He attributes a physical form to a personally developed language, based on a series of typographic alphabets, which he designs himself.
Although sculpture is one of the central media of the Artist, language and text form the basis of his individual works and sometimes of entire exhibitions. Using language as a fragment and an act, similar to an act of speech, which is not only a statement, but also an action, Michael Dean translates text fragments and typographies into physical experiences.
Michael Dean (b. 1977, Newcastle Upon Tyne, U.K.) lives and works in London. He graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2001 with a BA Fine Art (Studio Practice and Contemporary Critical Theory). Dean’s work begins with his own writing, abstracting text into sculptures and immersive installations that explore language, the body, and intimacy.
In 2021, Dean will have a solo exhibition at Andrew Kreps Gallery in NYC and Mendes Wood in São Paulo. Recent solo exhibitions include: Tu Texto Aquí, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Having You On , BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom, Teaxths and Angeruage, Portikus, Frankfurt, 2017, Sic Glyphs, South London Gallery, London, 2016, Lost True Leaves, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, 2016. In 2017, Dean participated in Skulptur Projekt Münster, and in 2016, was shortlisted for the Turner Prize.
Additionally, Dean’s work has been included in institutional group exhibitions such as Scrivere Disegnando/When Language Seeks Its Other, CAC, Geneva (2020) The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture 2018, The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield (2018); Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017, Münster (2017); Turner Prize, Tate Britain, London (2016); Sculptures Also Die, Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina, Florence, (2015); Mirror City, Hayward Gallery London, London (2014); A History of Inspiration, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013).