William Leavitt: Theater Objects surveys the artist’s multifaceted forty-year career with approximately ninety works, including sculptural tableaux, paintings, works on paper, photographs, and performances, drawn from the late 1960s to 2010. A central figure in the 1960s conceptual art movement in LA, Leavitt examines the relationship between language and images through unusual juxtapositions often related to the vernacular culture of LA, as in California Patio (1972), a deliberately flimsy, set-like recreation of the titular structure, placed in a gallery space. Additional works included Leavitt’s prop-like Painted Image (1972) and Orchid for “The Silk” (1975); his photo-text installation Symbolic Objects (1974/2008); drawings of LA landmarks like The Ghost of Wilshire Boulevard (1982) and Theme Restaurant (1986); Rose and Chandelier (1990); and the recent installations Desert House Molecules, Solvent Molecule, and Warp Engines (all 2009).
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
William Leavitt: Theater Objects is organized by Bennett Simpson and Ann Goldstein, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.