Dale Brockman Davis at Matter Studio Gallery

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Dale Brockman Davis, Sunset Clarinet (2008). Assemblage, 48 × 32 × 12 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Matter Studio Gallery. Photo: Nancy Redford.

Sometimes the white cube is a vacuum—airless, colorless, soundless. Sometimes, in the stillness, we feel, quietly, on the edge of profundity. Catalyst of Matter, Dale Brockman Davis’ exhibition of assemblage sculptures, said “to hell!” with quiet introspection and instead crashed into the gallery—his objects are a raucous but deliberate mix of instrument parts, furniture limbs, beer-bottle foils, thimbles, house keys, washboards, and other eclectic items. The works on view, made over the last 15 years, maintained an allegiance to the practice and aesthetic of Los Angeles assemblage, but also demonstrated Davis’ unique capacity for seeing things not as they are, but as they could be—just as he did when he co-founded the groundbreaking Brockman Gallery in 1967 with his brother Alonzo. Though Davis is perhaps better known for his ceramic practice, Catalyst of Matter presented works that foregrounded a habitual, unsubtle experimentation with discarded instruments and other found objects and ephemera that for Davis are emblematic of Black culture. By utilizing objects that by definition require human intervention to be fully activated (instruments in particular), Davis’ sculptures project the viewer into the work as the player, compelling us to consider what or who isn’t present as much as what is.

Ambrocio’s Song (2020), an otherwise intact double bass adapted with a long, curved chair leg for a fretboard, appears to almost float above its stand. Bicycle spokes skewer brightly-colored corks against the bass’ smooth, reddish-brown body, while a vinyl record arcs out through the spokes like a red crescent moon, acting as a visualization of sound. The work evokes a striking simultaneity of presence and absence. Although the player’s absence is palpable, the sculpture’s scale and volume act as a stand-in for the body while the colorful corks imply the flamboyant cadence of an invisible tune—a pathway for imagined fingers to fly, animating the ad-hoc strings. Indeed, all the works in Catalyst of Matter conspired to bring vivacity to a space of wordlessness—not through music itself, but through the inference of those who once did, or might again, play it. 

A shiny red ribbon adorns the base of Tribute to Noah (2008), a delicate, harp-like form that embraces abstraction more than any of the other works that were on view. The sculpture is a lesson in contrasts, or opposites; composed of a twisted, rusted bumper decorated with the bulb of a toilet tank, the ribbon bestows trophy-like status onto what might otherwise be interpreted as a carefully balanced pile of oxidized scrap metal. The Noah in tribute is the artist Noah Purifoy, whose earliest sculptures were created from charred debris from the 1965 Watts Rebellion, and whose first solo exhibition was held at Brockman Gallery in 1971. In homage to Purifoy’s early sculptures, Tribute to Noah engages some of the gnarlier materials of the exhibition, perhaps to speak back to the time following the Watts Rebellion, after which Davis, barely 20 years old, was inspired to open his own gallery—to make something from nothing.

One of Davis’ newest works on view, Rasta Helmet Dreaded (2022), stood out as more confrontational, more blatantly symbolic. Consisting of a black motorcycle helmet affixed with a plethora of sharp objects and rope that together form a mohawk, this head-on-a-pedestal felt menacing and raw. Perhaps it was the dusted-up helmet, or being confronted with the sweaty, vacant space where scalp would meet foam and foam would meet fallible, molded plastic, that gave this work a ghostly air. And yet the choice of sharp objects—household items like pencils, colorful pick-up sticks, bicycle spokes, and a cork—suggest domesticity, even care. The ambiguity of the work is reiterated with the title’s double meaning—“dreaded” as in to have dreadlocks; “dreaded” as in feared. This overlap of meaning calls out the racist construction in which Blackness is synonymous with danger. Paired with this jarring realization is a lovely, subtle gesture; the would-be face was turned away from viewers, precluding the eye contact that is critical to signifying acknowledgment or empathy in social spaces. Without this connection, we, too, are disconnected, left in the ambivalent position of embodying the plight of the shy, ghostly rider, and at the same time wondering where they might have been going, who they might have been.

Davis—a gleaner, a form-maker, an organizer, a presenter, a teacher—has always been committed to the possibility of creating something more meaningful—more beautiful—from that which has been overlooked. This drive has existed since Brockman Gallery gave space and support to Black, multicultural, and other marginalized artists at a time when so few galleries or institutions would do so. While making treasure out of discarded objects isn’t a new practice, Davis’ revelation is the haunting sense of loneliness, a yearning to reanimate the past, that resonated behind the funky, colorful, energized forms of Catalyst of Matter. For Davis, the instrument itself contains the powers of transubstantiation—and it is through art, only art, that a second life is possible, where the lost or missing players might play again. Catalyst of Matter is a continuation of Davis’ quest to make visible what is deemed dispensable, less-than, or other, sucking up debris and blasting it out as something sonorous, shining, enlightening.

This review was originally published in Carla issue 28.

Dale Brockman Davis, Midnight Basketball Corner Shot (2006). Assemblage, 44 x 48 x 30 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Matter Studio Gallery. Photo: Gary Cloud.

Dale Brockman Davis, When the Saints Go Marching In (2008). Assemblage, 26 x 60 x 8 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Matter Studio Gallery. Photo: Gary Cloud.

Dale Brockman Davis, Bayou Lost & Found (2008). Assemblage, 48 x 48 x 8 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Matter Studio Gallery. Photo: Gary Cloud.

Georgia Lassner is a writer and critic in Los Angeles. She has been a contributor to X-TRA contemporary art quarterly since 2018 and was the author of UNPUBLISHED (2017–2019), a blog featuring deep-dive texts into the work of unsung artists.

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