Project Room: Danny Thach
September 10–October 22, 2016
Danny Thach, installation view, 2016
Danny Thach, installation view, 2016
Danny Thach
Untitled (After Keith Haring), 2015
Acrylic on canvas
28 × 22 in
Danny Thach
Untitled (After Keith Haring), 2016
Acrylic on canvas
28 × 22 in.
Danny Thach
Untitled (After Keith Haring), 2016
Acrylic on canvas
24 × 24 in.
Danny Thach
Untitled (After Keith Haring), 2016
Acrylic on canvas
12 × 12 in.
Press Release
White Columns is pleased to present the first New York exhibition by the Bay Area-based artist Danny Thach. Thach is affiliated with the NIAD Art Center (National Institute of Arts & Disabilities) in Richmond, CA, a studio program and gallery that supports artists living and working with developmental disabilities. Thach’s exhibition continues White Columns’ ongoing collaborations with NIAD that included our 2012 solo exhibition with NIAD-affiliated artist Marlon Mullen.
In 2015, Danny Thach was introduced to the work of Keith Haring at the exhibition “Keith Haring – The Political Line” at San Francisco’s De Young Museum. On returning to NIAD, Thach subsequently embarked on a complex project of creating his own interpretations or ‘versions’ of some of Haring’s most iconic images. Taking existing Haring works as his departure point, Thach subtly re-interprets selected images, shifting colors or adding additional elements of his own. Over the past 18 months, Thach has made more than seventy individual works based on Haring’s, of which more than forty are on display at White Columns. Thach’s work, whilst evidently operating within the traditions of appropriation (e.g. Sturtevant, Richard Pettibone, etc.) is less interested in questioning the nature of the ‘original’ or ideas surrounding ‘authorship’; rather his project might be better understood as an ‘amplification’ or a ‘mirroring’ of the original utopian impulses at the heart of Haring’s approach.
In parallel to the exhibition, White Columns has published a ‘zine by Thach entitled ‘Animation and Tribute’ which is available from the gallery, priced $2.00.
White Columns would like to thank Tim Buckwalter and everyone at NIAD, Richmond, CA for the enthusiasm and support in bringing Danny Thach’s work to New York. To learn more about NIAD: www.niadart.org
Danny Thach (b. 1986), lives and works in the Bay Area and is affiliated with the NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA. Thach’s works have been included in numerous group exhibitions at the NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA; and in a solo exhibition “Danny Thach vs Keith Haring” at Yali’s Café, Berkeley, CA (2016).
Danny Thach, installation view, 2016 (A total of twenty one paintings hung salon style across three light gray walls.)
Danny Thach, installation view, 2016 (A total of twenty one paintings hung salon style across two light gray walls.)
Danny Thach Untitled (After Keith Haring), 2015 Acrylic on canvas 28 × 22 in (A painting depicting a red snake being cut in half by a pair of green scissors made of two human bodies. Underneath, the words “STOP AIDS” are written in uppercase red block letters.)
Danny Thach Untitled (After Keith Haring), 2016 Acrylic on canvas 28 × 22 in. (A painting depicting a yellow cartoon figure against a red background. The figure stands inside the bottom portion of a nesting doll version of itself.)
Danny Thach Untitled (After Keith Haring), 2016 Acrylic on canvas 24 × 24 in. (A painting depicting a small cartoon figure holding up a smiling, bodiless head with glasses and parted hair. The image is rendered in thick gray lines against a black background.)
Danny Thach Untitled (After Keith Haring), 2016 Acrylic on canvas12 × 12 in. (A painting depicting a cartoon face rendered in bold, black lines against a reddish-pink background.)
