William Leavitt
Western Movie
17 Mar - 19 May 2018
William Leavitt, Western Movie, 2018, installation view, galerie frank elbaz, Paris
Photo: Claire Dorn
Photo: Claire Dorn
WILLIAM LEAVITT
Western Movie
17 March - 19 May 2018
galerie frank elbaz is pleased to announce Western Movie, the gallery's second solo exhibition of William Leavitt in Paris.
Western Movie
William Leavitt’s recent landscape paintings in acrylic and vinyl will open at galerie frank elbaz on March 17, 2018. Using his own photographs as backgrounds for these montage scenes, he manipulates the images in Photoshop in order to create complicated spaces, and provide settings for the array of coded and symbolic objects that inhabit them. These elements, plus some sourced from the web and print, are chosen for their juxtaposition and emotional resonance. The ensemble of scenes make for an undefined cinematic narrative.
Also as part of the exhibition there will be a video installation of a set-like fragment of a domestic interior, consisting of a patio door opening with vertical blinds, and a projection of figures walking through a birch forest.
‘‘Leavitt’s paintings are worlds layered upon worlds, each themselves suggestive of an uncanny science fiction surrealism met with Southern California banality. The artist who, through his career, has destabilized the medium and location of his works, often by displaying sets from film or theater pieces as sculptural installations. The result is that the works project multiple perspectives – as an array of objects in physical space, a suggested narrative playing out in the viewer’s mind, and a working set in a film’’.
Gene McHugh
Since the late 1960s, Leavitt’s work has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions including an extensive survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2011, and at MAMCO Geneva in 2017. His work has been included in thematic exhibitions around the world and is included in public collections such as Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of Art, New York; The Hammer Museum; Los Angeles, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and MAMCO, Geneva.
Western Movie
17 March - 19 May 2018
galerie frank elbaz is pleased to announce Western Movie, the gallery's second solo exhibition of William Leavitt in Paris.
Western Movie
William Leavitt’s recent landscape paintings in acrylic and vinyl will open at galerie frank elbaz on March 17, 2018. Using his own photographs as backgrounds for these montage scenes, he manipulates the images in Photoshop in order to create complicated spaces, and provide settings for the array of coded and symbolic objects that inhabit them. These elements, plus some sourced from the web and print, are chosen for their juxtaposition and emotional resonance. The ensemble of scenes make for an undefined cinematic narrative.
Also as part of the exhibition there will be a video installation of a set-like fragment of a domestic interior, consisting of a patio door opening with vertical blinds, and a projection of figures walking through a birch forest.
‘‘Leavitt’s paintings are worlds layered upon worlds, each themselves suggestive of an uncanny science fiction surrealism met with Southern California banality. The artist who, through his career, has destabilized the medium and location of his works, often by displaying sets from film or theater pieces as sculptural installations. The result is that the works project multiple perspectives – as an array of objects in physical space, a suggested narrative playing out in the viewer’s mind, and a working set in a film’’.
Gene McHugh
Since the late 1960s, Leavitt’s work has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions including an extensive survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2011, and at MAMCO Geneva in 2017. His work has been included in thematic exhibitions around the world and is included in public collections such as Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of Art, New York; The Hammer Museum; Los Angeles, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and MAMCO, Geneva.