Grant Recipients Grants to Artists Visual Arts 2015

David Hartt

2015 Grants to Artists
Visual Arts
Visual Artist
Born Montreal, Canada, 1967
Lives in Philadelphia, PA
Additional Information
davidnolangallery.com/artists/david-hartt

2015 was a busy and productive year. I produced a film installation called adrift for Or Gallery in Vancouver. Another new film installation titled Interval was produced originally for LAXART in Los Angeles and then expanded for a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. The work has since been acquired by The Museum of Modern Art. Additionally I contributed new work to the MoMA exhibition Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015.... I am grateful to the Foundation for Contemporary Art. Without your support and recognition, I wouldn't have had the focus or resources to make this transitional year nearly as rewarding as it's turned out to be.

- David Hartt, December 27, 2015

Artist Statement

I have a research-based practice wherein I create digital films, installations, photographs, and sculptures that unpack the social, cultural, and economic complexities of my subjects. The work explores how historic ideas and ideals persist or transform over time. The current work is also becoming increasingly speculative and suggests hybrid models for consideration. Ultimately, I consider my practice as an opportunity to dimensionalize my experience of the world and my place in it.

- December 2014

Biography

David Hartt is a visual artist who creates work that unpacks the social, cultural, and economic complexities of his various subjects. He explores how historic ideas and ideals persist or transform over time.

With the support of his 2015 Grants to Artists award, Hartt produced two new film installations: adrift, for Or Gallery in Vancouver, and Interval, for LAXART in Los Angeles. Interval was expanded for a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago and has since been acquired by The Museum of Modern Art. Additionally, he contributed new work to Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 at The Museum of Modern Art.

Prior to his 2015 FCA grant, his exhibition Stray Light (2014) originated with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and traveled to the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. The exhibition presented a series of photographs, videos, and sculptures taken at and inspired by the Chicago headquarters of the Johnson Publishing Company, home to Ebony and Jet Magazines. The building, sold in 2010, remained virtually unchanged since its 1971 design, giving Hartt's works a sense of intimacy and detachment. Stray Light explores the ideological potential of the site as an icon of African-American culture and how it is actually self-defined.

Hartt has had solo exhibitions at LA><ART, David Nolan Gallery in New York, and Corbett vs. Dempsey in Chicago. In 2014, he participated in the Aimia Photography Prize exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Canadian Biennial at the National Gallery of Canada. His work is in public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum, Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Previous to receiving his FCA support, Hartt received The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2011), an Artadia Award (2012), a United States Artists Cruz Fellowship (2012), and an Art Matters Grant (2014).

Hartt received his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1994 and a B.F.A. from the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa in 1991. He has taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2011-2014) and the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College (2014-2015). He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design in the Department of Fine Arts.

Three wooden stools face a light blue screen mounted in front of four panel screens, one screen visibly displaying an image of white and purple flowers.

Installation view of FCA-supported Interval, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2015. 2-channel HD Video file, 15:07 minutes; 7X 3M Scotchprints, each 72 x 84 inches; audio / video equipment, repurposed seating elements, layout dimensions variable. Score by Mitchell Akiyama.

A framed photograph of a rural valley overlaps four juxtaposed images of a parked jeep, a yellow flower beside a wire fence, a house, and a person's bare chest.

Glass panels separate a photograph of a white man* (person?), his shoulder tattooed with swastikas, from a photograph of a parked jeep and a suspended screen of blue-hued vegetation. On the back wall are framed photographs of residential and high-density housing.

Central column with sweeping walls display screened photographs of a house, leaves growing alongside a casette player, a rural parking lot, a fluorescent-lit room, a narrow driveway behind a wooden house, and white flowers.

A curved wall displays screened photographs of a parked jeep, a fluorescent-lit room, a residential home, leaves growing beside a casette player, and a cracking parking lot of a concrete building with mountains in the distance.

Two suspended screens displaying blue hued images of a fence growing amidst vegetation and people standing beside parked cars in a rural lot are separated by a mint-green column.

A rusting blue and white fishing boat floats against two competely rusted barges in a still, overcast bay.

Interval I, 2014, archival pigment print mounted to Dibond, 36" x 54", edition of 6 + 1 AP. Courtesy of the artist and Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago.

Purple flowers grow along the side of an abandoned freight truck in an overgrown lot. In the background are three wooden shacks, two multi-storey buildings, and a building being constructed.

Interval V, 2014, archival pigment print mounted to Dibond, 36" x 54." edition of 6 + 1 AP, Courtesy of the artist and Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago.

White clouds cast shadows over a marsh and rural valley town in autumn. In the distance, mountains stretch across the horizon turning blue.

Interval VII, 2014, archival pigment print mounted to Dibond, 36" x 54," edition of 6 + 1 AP. Courtesy of the artist and Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago.

Blank white walls display framed gray-toned photographs of office shelves, a cubicle, a filing cabinet, a locker, and a miniature American flag.

Interval VII, 2014, archival pigment print mounted to Dibond, 36" x 54," edition of 6 + 1 AP. Courtesy of the artist and Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago.

A dimly lit room with multi-colored stools and retro wooden speakers atop carpets beside a projector and screen display of a tropical beach with palm trees.

Installation view of FCA-supported adrift, at Or Gallery, Vancouver, 2015. HD Video file transferred to 16mm film, 17:44 minutes; 16mm projector and looper / audio equipment, assorted stools, plastic rugs, layout dimensions variable. Score by Tape (Andreas Berthling, Johan Berthling & Tomas Hallonsten). Screenplay by Martine Syms.

A small bronze leafy sculpture is propped on the floor beside a white wall on which is displayed an orange-hued image of a cat on a railing.

Installation view of The Republic 2014. Courtesy of the artist and David Nolan Gallery, New York.

A smiling person sits on a wooden stool and watches a mounted screen displaying an image of a dog. Behind them, a metal frame separates them from a small bronze leafy plant sculpture.

Installation view of The Republic, 2014, HD video, 16:08, score by Sam Prekop, machined aluminum, 33" x 95" x 96," 3x turned poplar, 13" x 17," cast bronze 48" x 48" x 24," layout dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and David Nolan Gallery, New York.