Dave Hullfish Bailey

Dave Hullfish Bailey is an artist based in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. His project-based works propose experimental geographies of specific sites— overlooked bits of infrastructure, spontaneous gatherings, inaccessible natural systems, and points of erased cultural meanings. Mixing granular description with nonlinear threads of connection, his work has one eye on unraveling the counter-narratives inscribed in each site; the other is trained on generating conceptual and poetic models for thinking about our relationships to distant sites, communities and non-human ecologies. Some recurrent forms in his work are sculptural installations, social interventions, photographs, drawings, artist books, collaborative workshops and performative lectures.

Bailey’s work has been presented in solo exhibition projects at institutions including REDCAT, Los Angeles; Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; Malmo Konsthall; Raven Row, London; Casco, Utrecht; and Secession, Vienna. Since 2003 Bailey has developed with Sam Watson the CityCat Project, an ongoing project of art and land rights activism based in Brisbane, Australia. He has participated in biennial exhibitions including the 30th São Paulo Bienal (2012), Lyon Biennale (2007), Socle du Monde Biennial (2004) and the first Berlin Bienalle/Plattform (1998), as well as in international group exhibitions at institutions including: Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius; EKKM, Talinn; Kunsthal Aarhus; Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; De Appel, Amsterdam; Culturgest, Lisbon; Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; ICA, London; and NGBK, Berlin.

Artist books include What’s Left (Casco/Sternberg Press, Utrecht/Berlin: 2009); Elevator (Secession, Vienna: 2006); and Union Pacific (Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin: 1999). Dave Hullfish Bailey + Sam Watson: CityCat Project 2006-2016, was published by Sternberg Press in 2017.

Reviews and features have appeared in journals including Artforum, Frieze, FlashArt, Texte zur Kunst, Artext, and Springerin. Anthologies include The Artist As. . . (Sternberg Press, Berlin: 2017), Education (Whitechapel/MIT, Boston: 2011) and Creamier: Contemporary Art in Culture (Phaidon, London: 2010).

Additional grants and fellowships include the Freund Fellowship, Washington University/St Louis Art Museum, City of Los Angeles Individual Artist (COLA) Fellowship, Getty Fellowship in the Visual Arts/California Community Foundation Individual Artist Award, Center for Cultural Innovation, Durfee Foundation, Philip Morris Kunstförderung, and NEA Education Fellowship, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Residencies include the International Artists Studio Program in Stockholm (IASPIS) and the International Studio Program at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. Berlin.

Bailey earned his BA in philosophy at Carleton College, and holds graduate degrees from Harvard Divinity School and Art Center College of Design. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He teaches extensively in undergraduate and graduate art, architecture and public practice programs in the U.S. and abroad.