William Leavitt
dal 12/3/2011 al 2/7/2011
Segnalato da
12/3/2011
William Leavitt
Museum of Contemporary Art - MOCA, Los Angeles
Theater Objects. Surveying the artist's multifaceted 40-year career, the exhibition will include sculptural tableaux, paintings, works on paper, photographs, and performances drawn from the late '60s to the present. A key figure associated with the emergence and foundations of conceptual art in Los Angeles, Leavitt's works have employed ordinary fragments of popular and vernacular culture and modernist architecture as both props and signifiers to produce a distilled narrative.
co-curated by Bennett Simpson and Ann Goldstein
The Museum career to be Art (MOCA) presents William Leavitt: Theater Objects, the first solo museum exhibition and retrospective of the work of Los Angeles-based artist William Leavitt (b. 1941, Washington, D.C.). Surveying the artist’s multifaceted 40-year career, the exhibition will include sculptural tableaux, paintings, works on paper, photographs, and performances drawn from the late ’60s to the present.
A key figure associated with the emergence and foundations of conceptual art in Los Angeles during the late 1960s and '70s, Leavitt is primarily concerned with narrative and narrative forms. Since 1969, his works have employed ordinary fragments of popular and vernacular culture and modernist architecture as both props and signifiers to produce a distilled narrative.
The culture and atmosphere of Los Angeles has played a significant role in Leavitt's ongoing interest in "the theater of the ordinary" and the play between illusion and reality and nature and artifice that characterizes the city. Surveying the artist's multifaceted 40-year career, William Leavitt will include sculptural tableaux, paintings, works on paper, photographs, and performances drawn from the late '60s to the present. One of the most significant and influential figures working in Los Angeles, Leavitt has created a remarkable oeuvre that has influenced generations of artists, and this exhibition, which examines his extraordinary contributions, is both long overdue and highly anticipated.
The exhibition, co-curated by MOCA Associate Curator Bennett Simpson and Ann Goldstein, former MOCA senior curator and director designate at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring an introduction by Goldstein, essays by art historian Annette Leddy and Simpson, an interview with the artist by artist-writer Erik Bluhm, a selected artist's exhibition history and bibliography, and a complete checklist of the exhibition, constituting a comprehensive scholarly overview and examination of the artist's career.
William Leavitt: Theater Objects is made possible by lead support from Amy Adelson and Dean Valentine.
Major support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Generous additional support is provided by Fundación Jumex, Teiger Foundation, Karyn Kohl and MOCA Happy House, Margo Leavin Gallery, John Baldessari, Edward Israel, John Morace and Tom Kennedy, Steven F. Roth Family Foundation, The Danielson Foundation, and Rosette Delug.
On the occasion of the opening day of William Leavitt: Theater Objects, artist William Leavitt and co-curators Ann Goldstein and Bennett Simpson will discuss the artist's work and the exhibition. On 3.13.11 3:00 PM
Image: Hillside Lights (Incandescent) 2004, oil on canvas 24 x 60 in. Courtesy of Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles
Media contacts
Lyn Winter, director of communications lwinter@moca.org
Jessica Youn, pr coordinator Tel 213/633-5322 jyoun@moca.org
Media preview Friday, March 11, 2011 10am–1pm
Opening March 13, 2011 11AM to 5PM
MOCA Grand Avenue
250 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Hours:
Mon 11am–5pm
Tues, Wed Closed
Thurs 11am–8pm
Fri 11am–5pm
Sat, Sun 11am–6pm
General Admission: $10
Students with I.D.: $5
Seniors (65+): $5
Children under 12: Free
Free Thursday Evenings: Admission is free every Thursday, 5–8pm