American artist Adam Pendleton’s exhibition titled shot him in the face occupies the Ground Floor gallery at BALTIC with one large-scale gesture—a wall that diagonally cuts across the exhibition space.
The first sentence from the poem Albany by poet Ron Silliman functions as the exhibition’s point of departure. Pendleton appropriates the opening words of the text — "If the function of writing is to ‘express the world'" — and transforms it into monumental work spanning the entirety of the constructed wall. Layer upon layers of Pendleton’s works are also 'pasted' onto the wall. These various arrangements, including posters, framed collages, and sculptural objects based on Pendleton’s extensive archival material, incorporate images from various sources—all kept within a consistently black-and-white aesthetic.
The exhibition was originally shown at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.
