Pendleton ponders on race in America

Virginia-born artist Adam Pendleton is very much in the artist-as-activist mould. His Black Lives Matter paintings, on show at Pace gallery in London (until 23 May), highlight the plight of the African-American men Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown. “Pendleton responds to the political demonstrations that erupted following the highly publicised deaths of Martin, Garner, and Brown,” the organisers say. A large-scale site-specific piece emblazoned with the text Black Lives Matter, described as a wall work, dominates the space. Pendleton’s Independance series will, meanwhile, feature in the group exhibition at the Belgian pavilion during the 56th Venice Biennale (9 May-22 November). “The word ‘independance’ was taken from an image in [Venice Biennale curator] Okwui Enwezor’s book ‘The Short Century’ in which these Congolese men have made a sign that says ‘Independance du Congo,” Pendleton told Surface magazine. He has also bagged another prestigious commission, and is due to take up a residency at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “As part of my MoMA residency, I will create a work centred on the institution's Avalanche archive,” he says (Avalanche was an art journal published in New York between 1970 and 1976).