Diana Thater

Artist’s Statement

I have been an exhibiting artist for twenty-four years. During that time, film, video, artificial and natural light and the architecture with which my installations interact have been my materials. I explore the abstract qualities of my medium. My work is about the paths through time and space that are neither sequential and relative, nor purely aesthetic and subjective. Somewhere between classical narrative and experimental filmmaking is a place where relativity and subjectivity are in the process of being formed. My installation work is about that forming.

I explore ideas of abstraction in terms of film/video and space. One of the great innovations in 20th Century art is abstraction in painting and sculpture. The other great innovation is the moving image. Film and video have much to offer to the discourse on abstraction. The relationship of the moving image to abstraction is categorically different from that of painting. Video is, above all things, a representation of the progression of time. My work, writing and thinking are about the abstraction of moving-image time. I try to expand on this idea with each new work.

Website: thaterstudio.com

Biography

Solo Exhibitions

2014
Delphine, Saint-Philibert, Dijon [organized by Fonds régional d’art contemporain Bourgogne, Dijon]

2011
Chernobyl, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia

2010
Between Science and Magic, Santa Monica Museum of Art, California
Delphine, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart

Select Group Exhibitions

2014
Cinema & Painting, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand

2013
Not Yet Titled, Museum Ludwig, Cologne

2012
New Acquisitions, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

2010
The Artist’s Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Select Awards

2011
2011 Award for Artistic Innovation, Center for Cultural Innovation, Los Angeles
Activist Work

2010
Artist-in-residence for The Dolphin Project, worked on “The Cove”, the 2010 Academy Award winning documentary about the capture and slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan

EDUCATION

1990
M.F.A., Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California

1984
B.A., Art History, New York University