Road Back to Relevance

Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Nomas Foundation, Rome, Road Back to Relevance gives insight into the last decade of Dan Reess (b. Swansea, UK, 1982) practice. It brings together groups of workspaintings, videos, installations, and photographythat have never before been viewed simultaneously, and reveals the complex nature of the artists research. The title refers to a slide presentation made by the artist in collaboration with an advertising strategist and designer that, by charting the course of a specific solidarity campaign between Wales and Nicaragua started in the 1980s, questions how pre-clicktivist modes of social engagement, activism, and international solidarity can remain relevant today. As Dieter Roelstraete writes in his essay contribution: The work of Dan Rees touches upon a wide range of topics, subjects, and issues, but one dominant, recurring preoccupation doubtlessly concerns the politics of taste. Tasteits cultural corollaries, its political over- and undertones, and most importantly its social sourcesis one of Reess preferred problems. And where it is addressed most directly and unapologeticallythat is to say, in the so-called Artex paintingsis exactly where his work becomes most willingly, egregiously problematic. Texts by Dieter Roelstraete, Saim Demircan, Ben Gregory?