David Haxton

Collection of 16 Films

1970-1982

David Haxton, Collection of 16 Films, 1970-1982 (still)

Collection of 16 Films is a selection of David Haxton’s single-screen videos, which he began producing in the 1970s as a continuation of some of the conceptual underpinnings of his earlier film installations. As the described by Haxton, “he became interested in in examining the nature of the medium of film including light, movement, and the formation of a three-dimensional illusion of space in a flat surface.”

This selection of films were produced in 16mm film between 1970 and 1982 and have been digitally mastered in high definition from the original 16mm films, which are preserved by the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles.

Reminiscent of the paired back, low-fi quality of other conceptual video work from that period, Haxton abides to a certain criteria to restrict aspects of the medium: he does not do any editing, always fixes the camera onto a single position for the whole duration of the films, and he limits the actions of the performers.

In films such as Pyramid drawings, Cube and Room Drawings, Cube, and Cylinder Sphere and Solid, Haxton, or sometimes other performers, come into the frame to enact simple movements like drawing shapes in the floor, picking up and pushing strings or pulling down a plastic curtain. Many of these videos include geometrical forms as away to study and undo three-dimensional space and flatten the medium.

In another piece, Bringing Lights Forward, the film is presented in negative and hence what initially appears to be spray-painted dots, is eventually revealed as lights being turned on and off as someone gradually moves them closer to the camera. In various ways, these films reflect his methodical approach to the study of light, its effect in our perception of space, and the very essence of film.

1. Bringing Lights Forward

2. Vertical and Receding Lines

3. Overlapping Planes

4. Cutting Light and Dark Holes

5. Black on White Tape

6. Black and White Drawing

7. Painting Lights

8. Painting in Object

9. Pyramid Drawings

10. Cube and Room Drawings

11. Cubes

12. Cylinder Sphere and Solid

13. White Red and Green Lights

14. Landscape and Room

15. Painting Room Lights

16. Drawing Houses

Although trained as a painter, David Haxton is known for his exploration of light through the mediums of photography and film. Early in his career, in the 1960s and 1970s, he began making installations where he would recreate spaces inside the gallery, and it was through the inclusion of film in these early pieces that he became interested in film’s potential to manipulate space. Examples include the installation Four Screen Films, where he reconstructed his studio in San Diego as projections onto large freestanding screen, as well as an unrealized proposal asking to reconstruct the interior of the Sidney Janis Gallery within the Leo Castelli Gallery simultaneously with an exhibition by Robert Morris. Over the following decades, his focus geared towards film and he began exploring the elements that he considered essential to the medium such as light, the illusion of space, and the reality of the space where the film is projected. Consequently, he created several single-screen films that use light as an effect to both highlight the medium’s two-dimensional nature, and bring forth its abstract and painterly qualities. Later, he began using photography to investigate similar concerns, and as with the films, his approach to photography remained consistent for decades. Several of his bodies of work consist of photographs of spot lit, large sheets of perforated paper casting shadows in the spaces in which they are hung. In the compositions Haxton uses the spotlights to ‘paint’ with light, emphasizing the importance of their position in defining our perception of the materials and space.

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David Haxton Collection of 16 Films

David Haxton

Collection of 16 Films