DIANA THATER

The work was revolutionary; it broke with thetraditions of the previous generations of video artists. Thater’ssubject matter was simple and the use of structural methods helped toarticulate the medium of video projection. Thater created a jewel boxwith footage of Monet’s garden broken into the primary video colors. Theimage was not broken apart in post-production but inside the Barcoprojector. Also critical to the work was Thater addressing the existingarchitecture of the gallery. She allowed the outside to be present andturned the window into a front and rear screen. The viewer was present,often being projected upon.

A few weeks later, Oo Fifi Part II waspremiered at Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Here, Thater took threeprojectors, each one projecting only one color (red, green or blue) andreconstructed the image. The footage was the same as Oo Fifi Part I,but the result was an installation that accomplished its inverse.Instead of separating the projection into three component parts, Thaterused three projectors to create a single composite image, therebyforming an analog approximation of a digital projection.

In bothworks, the focus shifts between the pure visual delight of the phantasm,to the individual colors that make up the image, to the physicalapparatus of the projector, to the architecture of the space. Engaged inthe act of looking, the viewer is also made aware of their own presenceand participation in the work, as their body interrupts theconstruction of the image. For Part II, Thater heightens thisawareness by placing colored gels on the windows, expanding the workbeyond the boundaries of the room, and enveloping the audience so thatthey may, in her words, “see the way projectors see.” It is a testamentto the power of these works that they have retained their ability tocaptivate twenty years after they were first exhibited.

Diana Thater works and lives in Los Angeles. Oo Fifi, Five Days in Claude Monetʼs Garden hasbeen shown around the world in venues such as The Kwangju Biennale,MUKA, the Beyeler Foundation and MOCA, Los Angeles among many others.Her recent solo museum exhibitions include Chernobyl, IMA, Brisbane,Australia, and Peonies, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH. Shehas also had solo exhibitions at SMMA, Santa Monica, CA; KunsthalleBremen, Germany; Kunsthaus Graz, Austria; Dia Center for the Arts, NewYork; Vienna Secession, Vienna, Austria; MOMA, New York; Walker ArtCenter, Minneapolis, MN. In 2012 her work was included in the inauguralexhibition of the newly re-opened Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, TheNetherlands. Broken Circle, her contribution to the 1997Münster Sculpture Project is permanently on view at the Museum fürGegenwartskunst in Siegen, Germany. In 2008, she installed a permanentpublic installation at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics,California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.