Since the early 90’s Diana Thater has transformed the medium of video installation. Thater is known for her innovative installation techniques, which have substantially influenced the genre of installation. She brings these formal aspects of the work together with her innovative use of film/video and texts about nature in opposition to culture. Thater layers her moving images over whatever architecture she is given and takes every aspect of context and place into consideration. Her oft stated position is that visible technology, beauty and pleasure (which she deems to be one and the same) are not antithetical to one another but may exist simultaneously in the work of art and may produce the sublime.

In 1301PE’s inaugural exhibition, Thater will present two new works, a work from 2006 and the seminal work Ginger Kittens from 1994. Perfect Devotion Number Four (2008) and Number Five (2006 )are two single-projection installations. In these works, two parts of a series of ten, Thater filmed three rescued female tigers playing in their enclosure. The works stars Zoe, a tiger made blind through human abuse. Each work in the series utilizes a different editing strategy. Number Five is made of a complex series of cuts, while Number Four is a single roll of double-exposed 35mm film and is cut in-camera. Here the artist used a nearly extinct film technique to film a nearly extinct animal. Untitled Videowall (2008) is a round six-monitor work displayed on the floor of the gallery. The viewer looks down into imagery of a bright orange Monarch butterfly, filmed in Michoacan, Mexico. These works explore unique methods of structuring a video/film through camera technique, editing, and installation, and thus push the boundaries of non-narrative form. The movements of the lithe tigers and staccato insects in time and space both unsettles and captivates the viewer.

Thater’s early work, Ginger Kittens (1994), is a hyper-saturated landscape of sunflowers. Ginger Kittens pushed the boundaries of video technology as it was at the time of the works filming (1991). The installation was originally shown as a window projection at Friesen wall 116, Cologne and has been exhibited in many exhibitions, including Thater’s critically acclaimed survey at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1997) where it was simultaneously a rear projection over the lobby, a night-projection in the windows of the museum and an installation. This piece has a particular and peculiar place in Thater’s oeuvre. She has brought it out a number of times over the past 14 years and uses it how and where she likes. The piece is always presented in the context of whatever show it is in so it always becomes part of the landscape of her exhibitions and is never used as an older work. The artist is using it to see how long she can keep transforming the same image architecturally and installationally.

There are currently a number of installations of Thaters work in Southern California including The Colburn School; Untitled (2007) permanent outdoor Installation; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Bing Theater, PD6 (2005),The best space is the deep space (1998) April 2007 October 25, 2008; Childrens Museum of San Diego, Delphine(1999) May 4, 2008 - January 1, 2009; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego,RARE (2008) in “Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet”August 17, 2008 - February 1, 2009; Museum of Contemporary Art,The Caucus Race(1998) in “Index” August 24 - December 15, 2008;Claremont Museum of Art,Oculus (2001), Blue Green Yellow Suns (2000) “Multiverse” September 2 - December 28, 2008; California Institute of Technology, The Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics,Untitled (2008), permanent installation, opening November 2008.

Thater is the editor of the forthcoming book: drawling, stretching and fainting in coils which will receive a reception and book launch at Art Catalogs at the Museum of Contemporary Artin October 2008.

Diana Thater works and lives in Los Angeles. Her recent solo exhibitions include Off with their Heads, OSRAM Art Projects / Seven Screens, Munich, Germany, The Experience of Color: Ann Veronica Janssens & Diana Thater, University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a dual museum survey at the Kunsthalle Bremen and the Museum of Gegenwartskunst, Siegen, Germany. She has also had solo exhibitions at the Dia Center for the Arts in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Vienna Secession, Vienna, The MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.Broken Circle, her contribution to the 1997 Munster Sculpture Project is permanently on view at the Museum fur Gegenwartskunst in Siegen, Germany. Thater was selected as the first curator for Festpiele+ (the Munich Opera Festival) and produced drawling, stretching and fainting in coilsa group show for the Opera house in 2007.