TEXT:

(in all its different manifestations) is an ebb and flow of mischief and melancholy. David Horvitz’s conceptual practice circumvents, provokes, and rearranges systems of circulation, observation, enterprise, and record. The breadth of work presented here exhibits Horvitz’s propensity to play with complexity—how the relations between distinct components of a system and their context become sites of intervention and examination. (in all its different manifestations) is sporadic, open, and inexhaustive. While breadth connotes measurements of depths and distances—be they of experiences or oceans or more—what of a breadth that is iterative, only momentarily comprehensive, and ever anew? 

A “found” film uploaded to YouTube is a gesture of fondness or a quotation of a late, elusive artist’s practice. Data from the James River recorded during this exhibition’s original dates--postponed until now by the pandemic--configure the pace of a mirrored, digital clock. Documentation of transported seawater, and a letter to the Department of Transportation are evidence of the subjectivity of time-zones. A figure moves at dusk spreading Washington Robusta/Mexican Fan Palm seeds across the Trump National Golf Course. The embrace of seahorse lovers disrupts the staid, transactional nature of the Frieze Art Fair. Horvitz exposes means of public access to beaches online and physically along the West Coast via the anonymous, collaborative, editing process of Wikipedia. The Eradinus constellation is mapped by the turning off of city street lamps. Remnants from this act are in the form of a photo slideshow and the constellation mapped onto the city of Paris. There is a printed poem from which words pertaining to anxiety are culled from the metadata of online emotional expression—creating something like a minimalist version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. You can download your own shareable PDF. And a ship’s bell is rung, and the exhibition closes each day at nautical dusk so visitors may experience the exhibition during evening twilight.

Most objects for (in all its different manifestations) are intentionally on loan, elucidating a quality of conceptual works often being in-between appearances. A new object is currently missing. In its place, longing for its arrival, is a piece of museum rubble. This object, the forthcoming exhibition publication, David Horvitz: Newly Found Bas Jan Ader Film (Afterall Books / One Work), will be a form of a future exhibition guide; this project points out the loneliness of seeking definitive answers in exhibitions when they are not to be found. Afterall, a leading contemporary arts research hub and publisher, produces a series of books under the heading “Afterall Books: One Work.” They explain of the series, “The books insist that a single contemporary work of art (in all its different manifestations), through a unique and radical aesthetic articulation or invention, can affect our understanding of art in general.” Therefore, owing much to conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader, Horvitz and 1708 are publishing a new, unauthorized installment of the “One Work” series. This book anchors Horvitz’s recent work and shares a story about authenticity and its institutions (or the other way around).

Special thanks to Paulina Ascencio Fuentes; Andrew Berardini; ChertLüdde, Berlin; Laurel De George; Brooks Heintzelman; Elizabeth King and Carlton Newton; Kinker Press, Inc; Praz-Delavallade, Los Angeles; Rappahannock Oyster Co., Steve Sams; Jeff Weiss; Yvon Lambert, Paris.

Typeface for all exhibition materials: Afterall Serif (bootlegged).

PROGRAM:

– r i c h m o n d  f l u x u s  l e s s o n s – is a participatory project with and for children (and their adults) to create artworks from prompts cultivated by Horvitz and his daughter over the past year. In 2020 Horvitz was awarded the Follow Fluxus - After Fluxus prize from the Hessian State Capital of Weisbaden Germany and the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden to create a project that draws from the lineage of the Fluxus movement. – r i c h m o n d  f l u x u s  l e s s o n s – is an extension and new iteration of this for 1708 and Richmond. Over the course of the exhibition, six lessons will be shared. If you would like to receive information and each lesson via email, please say Hello at fluxus@1708gallery.org. This email address will also be one of many ways we will be receiving artworks. Each lesson will also be distributed through a network of schools, arts and community organizations, available weekly at 1708, and shared openly.