Adam Pendleton, a central figure in contemporary American painting, has redefined the medium as it relates to process and abstraction. Upending linear compositional logic, Pendleton’s paintings are created by a distilled layering of gesture, fragment, and form that mirrors the cacophony of contemporary experience. Each painting comes to life through its expressionistic flourishes, stark contrasts, and subtle uses of material, tone, and finish, as well as a precision reminiscent of minimal and conceptual art. Generative and poetic, his paintings create fluid and essential spaces for seeing, thinking, and feeling. Pendleton’s first edition for TEXTE ZUR KUNST belongs to his “Untitled (WE ARE NOT)” body of work, begun in 2019. The titular phrase, drawn from his “Black Dada Manifesto” (2008), is written, rewritten, and overwritten in varying scales and weights. Through layering and repetition, the phrase becomes truncated or partly illegible, asserting multiple negative identities – not-beings, not-nots, and being-nots. These works directly implicate the viewer, prompting reflection on the manifold possibilities of “what we are.” In this edition, Pendleton’s phrase has been hand-lithographed onto black paper and dusted with gold pigment, creating a simultaneously stark and subtle contrast between figure and ground.