les presses du réel

The Particles (of White Naugahyde)

William Leavitt - The Particles (of White Naugahyde)
The first publication of a play by William Leavitt.
Framed as a sitcom setting, the narrative of The Particles (of White Naugahyde) tells the story of a family auditioning for a NASA program, which sends them to a newly planned space colony. The demanding admission process makes them live in a security-free community in the desert together with other applicants. These two weeks in the desert result in anxiety and anti-social behavior among the participants.
2nd edition (2017).
A decisive figure of the Los Angeles art scene, William Leavitt (born 1941 in Washington, D.C.) has developed a singular body of work participating, on the one hand, in Conceptual art—whose important representatives, such as Douglas Huebler and John Baldessari, were also based in Los Angeles—and, on the other hand, resembling the "Narrative art" movement that emerged in the early 1970s. He is part of the same Californian artistic milieu as Allen Ruppersberg, Guy de Cointet, and Bas Jan Ader—with whom he edited the magazine Landslide in 1969–1970.
Through his installations and videos, drawings and paintings, play and sound performances, Leavitt re-examines the production of the Western imaginary, as imposed, since the end of World War II, by the "Hollywood factory." Through a selection of parts of stage sets, the isolation and recombination of fragments coming from everyday culture, which often conceals a conservative social order and politics, he turns these representations inside out: he makes us see them as so many conceptual frameworks in which stories (fictional ones or from our own lives) can be set. Also at play in Leavitt's continuing exploration of "the theater of the ordinary" is the coexistence of nature and artifice, exemplified by such landmark works as Forest Sound (1970) and California Patio (1972). His presentations of vernacular culture are often infused with deadpan humor, achieved either through the seemingly random juxtapositions of figurative elements in his two-dimensional works or via the sly stories that unfold in his installations, plays, and videos.
Graphic design: Teo Schifferli.
 
published in May 2014
English edition
14 x 21 cm (softcover)
64 pages (18 b/w ill.)
 
15.00
 
ISBN : 978-3-905929-60-7
EAN : 9783905929607
 
in stock
The Particles (of White Naugahyde) The Particles (of White Naugahyde) The Particles (of White Naugahyde)
topicsWilliam Leavitt: other title

William Leavitt: also present in









related to



















 top of page