David Goldes

Initially educated as a scientist, David Goldes’ photographs, videos, and drawings incorporate scientific phenomena in their creation. Capturing the simultaneous wonder and destruction of chemical and material reactions, Goldes’ oeuvre strikes a lyrical balance between careful composition and chance discovery.

Goldes holds a B.A. in Chemistry and Biology from SUNY Buffalo, an M.A. in Molecular Genetics from Harvard, and an M.F.A. in Photography from the Visual Studies Workshop/SUNY Buffalo. In 2017, he was designated a Professor Emeritus from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Goldes has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, NEA, Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation and Minnesota State Arts Board, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, and MacDowell. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Minneapolis Institute of the Arts; Yale Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; and the Musée Nicéphore-Niépce, Chalonsur-Saône, France. In 2023 Radius Books published David Goldes: Unpredictable Drawings (2023) with text by Walker Art Center curator Pavel Pyś. Previous books include Water Being Water (Wright State University, 2005) and Electricities (Damiani, 2017).