Deborah Kass American, b. 1952
Daddy, I Would Love to Dance (Rays/Stella), 2008
Acrylic on canvas
78 x 78 in
198.1 x 198.1 cm
198.1 x 198.1 cm
7213
Further images
In an interview with BOMB Magazine, Deborah Kass described this painting, saying, 'Daddy I Would Love To Dance is the story of my life as an artist. It’s my absolute...
In an interview with BOMB Magazine, Deborah Kass described this painting, saying, "Daddy I Would Love To Dance is the story of my life as an artist. It’s my absolute desire to participate — wanting to be part of history, wanting to talk to history, to dance with it. I’ve always seen art history as my community. In my mind these postwar artists are my friends. The line ‘Daddy I would love to dance’ is the first female epiphany in A Chorus Line. The syntax is completely female. Little girls stood on their daddies’ feet and danced around the living room. That’s what the song is about, and that’s what me and art history is about.”
This painting belongs to a series of work Deborah Kass began in the aftermath of the contentious Presidential election in 2000, as well as the ensuing terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 and resultant War on Terror. Kass deployed nostalgia as a potent aesthetic device in these works. Titled feel good paintings for feel bad times, the series drew liberally from various Post War 20th Century aesthetic positions, especially those of Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha. Using their vibrant, optimistic formalism as a structure on which to embed hopeful lyrics from Broadway, Pop Music, film scores, Yiddish traditions, and the Great American Song Book, Kass created electric visual mash-ups that inspire reflection on the differences between the contemporary artistic, political and cultural zeitgeist and that of the period following World War II.
This painting belongs to a series of work Deborah Kass began in the aftermath of the contentious Presidential election in 2000, as well as the ensuing terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 and resultant War on Terror. Kass deployed nostalgia as a potent aesthetic device in these works. Titled feel good paintings for feel bad times, the series drew liberally from various Post War 20th Century aesthetic positions, especially those of Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha. Using their vibrant, optimistic formalism as a structure on which to embed hopeful lyrics from Broadway, Pop Music, film scores, Yiddish traditions, and the Great American Song Book, Kass created electric visual mash-ups that inspire reflection on the differences between the contemporary artistic, political and cultural zeitgeist and that of the period following World War II.
Provenance
The artist's studio, New York, NY, USAKavi Gupta gallery, Chicago, IL USA
Exhibitions
New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery, MORE feel good paintings for feel bad times, September 23 – October 30, 2010About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art, 2019, Wrightwood 659, Chicago, IL, USA
Deborah Kass, 2020, Kavi Gupta gallery, Chicago, IL, USA (Forthcoming)