May 28, 2025 — A description of the show “This Is Post-Theory Art” appearing in Chicago’s The Visualist, which “highlights the work of cultural producers such as artists” in Chicago.

May 2025 — Gallery Press Release —- Third Solo Show

This Is Post-Theory Art

Adam Daley Wilson

June 6 – July 18, 2025

ENGAGE Projects is pleased to present This Is Post Theory Art, a solo exhibition by painter, performance artist, and art theorist Adam Daley Wilson. The show’s visual and text-based pieces propose—first—that such a thing as Post-Theory Art may be seen in relation to conceptual art—and second—it can be defined as theory-making by an artist that is not just cognitive but also emotional and sensory-felt—landing in a viewer’s head, heart, and body all at once. Please join us on Friday, June 6th 5-7pm for the opening of This Is Post-Theory Art.

The show also proposes that one example of possible art practices in Post-Theory Art is “artist-placed public document art”—an artist creates a theory of public interest, places it into a court—art-as-law—and the court’s response lands not just in the heads, hearts, and lived experiences of the participants, but also in members of the public, if the public issue resonates.

In all of this, Post-Theory Art is proposed as human: When an artist makes a work with their head, heart, and body—all three—and when a viewer then experiences it themselves through all three, then perhaps this is a special human connection that AI is unable to do. If so, Post-Theory Art, by communicating theories through the emotional and sensorial, may be a way to preserve our human theory-making in this new time when AI can now make theories too.

The show presents three types of work: (1) Large-scale oil-stick “inscribed paintings” and “new cave paintings” with layers of text in the artist’s loose handwriting, part of the artist’s personal writing system; (2) precise visual-text pieces; and (3) smaller works that bring together the elements of the show. Daley Wilson has also researched and written a number of informal articles about Post-Theory Art that can be searched on Google / Bing.

Daley Wilson is a self-taught artist with degrees from Stanford Law and U. Penn. His work draws from his self-study of conceptual art history, text-based art in other cultures and times, semiotics, and art theory. He makes his work during his creative hypomanias that arise from his mental illness of bipolar 1. This is his third solo show. The first two were “Must See” by Artforum (Chicago, 2021, 2023). Most recently, his work was selected for EXPO Chicago public art (2025). He practices law (constitutional, public interest), mentors artists pro bono, and serves on non-profit boards (academia, local parks, and mental illness stigma advocacy run by teens).

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Backstory and More Info

Adam Daley Wilson (b. 1971) is a self-taught conceptual artist represented by ENGAGE Projects Gallery in Chicago. He lives and works in Portland Maine.

His work manifests in oil painting, installations, video, and performance. He is also an emerging art theorist.

Daley Wilson’s practice blends cognitive and intuitive processes where he uses language in both legible texts and abstract personal writing systems to experiment with meaning-making and viewer interpretation.

His works are informed by his traditional education (Stanford Law, University of Pennsylvania) and his bipolar 1: Neurologically, when in hypomanias, his naturally high levels of dopamine and serotonin cause increased electrical connectivity in the frontal and temporal lobes, causing increased abilities to see relations, connections, and associations between things normally seen as far apart.

Daley Wilson’s works are in collections in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Miami, and Chicago, and both solo shows so far were Artforum “Must See” shows in Chicago (2021, 2023).

His work in art theory and art philosophy includes a top-10 paper in the Fine Arts, Aesthetics, and Philosophy Journals of SSRN (2024), and he has served on the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Doctoral Studies in Visual Art, an international PhD program for artists. He continues to brief issues in Art Law, Constitutional Law, the First Amendment, and the Visual Artists’ Rights Act.

On the basis of his shows, the Berlin-based advisory Artfacts lists him in the top 5% of artists associated with post-conceptualism, conceptual painting, text-based art, and activist art.

As a self-taught artist indebted to mentors since his unexpected start in 2014, after a meds change by his psychiatrist, he informally mentors emerging artists in the US and several countries.

Categories of Theory Art and Post-Theory Pieces at ENGAGE Projects Gallery Chicago

Oil Text Paintings

Abstract Personal Writing System Paintings

Oil Text Paintings On Photography

Installations and Performance

Selected Press and Publications

Third solo show THIS IS POST-THEORY ART reviewed in New City Art (Chicago) June 26, 2025

Second solo show THIS IS TEXT BASED ART featured in Mousse Magazine (Italy) in its “curated roundup of the best contemporary art exhibitions and events held by galleries, museums, and institutions in town during [EXPO Chicago 2023],” 4/10/23

Second solo show THIS IS TEXT BASED ART on Artforum’s must see list, 2023

First solo show ALREADY GONE on Artforum’s must see list, 2021

First solo show ALREADY GONE reviewed in New Art Examiner (Chicago), March 2021

NBC New Center Maine features, 2/16/21 and 2/23/21

Conceptual Theory Art as a Method for Interdisciplinary Research, Hypothesis, and Critical Analysis Both Within and Beyond Traditional Western Social Sciences (August 01, 2024). Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4913371

Selected Post-Theory Performance Pieces and Happenings 

If You Let Yourself Think About It (Theory Art Piece 1). Artist’s physical act of placing a VARA-qualifying text-based visual artwork, about a social justice legal theory of first impression in the United States, within the Supreme Court of a State, causing the justices to be both audience and actors in a happening about journalism as art and legal theory as art, 2023-2024.

Theory As Art, Journalism As Art, Law As Art (Theory Art Pieces 2, 3, 4). Ongoing placements of VARA-qualifying text artworks within judicial branches and courts, each causing happenings within courts as to the art of journalism, the art of law, and theory as art, 2023-2026.

Look At What We Have Created II. Live creation of personal writing system painting and happening with roughly 20 viewer-participants, second solo show, during EXPO Chicago, 2023.

Do You Own Conceptual Ownership? 4-day performance with video, installation, tangible art ownership experiment, and conceptual social justice ownership experiment. Guest artist project by invitation. The Other Art Fair New York, Nov. 8-11, 2018.

Some Feelings And Thoughts I’ll Have Any Second. 4-day performance with installation and conceptual video. The Other Art Fair New York, Nov. 18-22, 2017.

Look At What We Have Created. 12.25-hour performance walk through New York City, overnight, playing 6 tracks of audio from artist’s backpack, creating layers of words from academics personally known by the artist discussing issues from mass incarceration to LGBTQ+ rights, until the overlapping audio layers rendered the spoken words meaningless, Nov. 22-23, 2017.

Pending Post-Theory Art and Performance Art Subject Matter Area (2025-2026) —- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hr1fmK7IZEy3bv48Qo8rg6tYxFwXPmN5/view?usp=sharing

Some Critique and Debate Articles about Post-Theory Art and Artist-Placed Public Document Art

Some initial critiques are here.

Some initial debates are here.