Verbal Description: Danielle Dean’s 2.00. a.m.
From Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet As It's Kept (Verbal description)
Mar 10, 2022
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Verbal Description: Danielle Dean’s 2.00. a.m.
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Danielle Dean’s 2.00. a.m. (2021) is a watercolor on paper measuring 48 × 84 inches (121.92 × 213.36 cm).
Narrator: This painting by Danielle Dean is a large-scale imaginary landscape bathed in moonlight. The viewer is placed in the position of looking over large rocks placed in the center foreground of the painting. From the upper left corner green palm leaves drift in the night sky. Beyond the rocks enframed by the palm leaves lies a valley of rough terrain in which an office workspace is located.
Danielle Dean: In this first layer of rocky terrain, you can see a sort of workspace that has three computers, two computer screens and one laptop and an open chair. There's no one there, but the screens are on. And, actually, the first screen is a depiction of Amazon Mechanical Turk website, so the work that the person may be doing, and then there is an image of the whole landscape that you see, but reduced in size on the screen.
Narrator: In the foreground is a sandy area that is the top of a cliff with a small dog sitting on top of it. A stick lies near the animal. The dog is turned away from the viewer and gazes into the distance.
Moving into the center area of the painting beyond the valley of the desolate office space is an area of trees, the colors of autumn leaves. To the right of the foliage is a large, jagged boulder. Beyond the trees and the boulder are rows and rows of data servers. Silvery and geometrically organized they recede into the distance meeting a river overlooked by midnight blue cliffs. Boats drift on the water - a bridge spans the river.
Danielle Dean: And hovering above a cliffs and is an alien spaceship. Beyond the alien spaceship is a flat city with lights. And then beyond that is more mountains, and you can see the night sky, the stars, and a kind of dramatic lightning-like moon.
Narrator: This work is from a series based on elements of Ford car ads from different time periods. The artist removes most people and cars from the ads in order to empahsize the fantasy created by the landscape.
Danielle Dean: In all of the ads, there's people and cars, but I always take the people out and I always take the cars out, but I like to leave the animals. So that's why there's a little dog there.
