Stephen Lapthisophon
Stephen Lapthisophon is an American artist and educator working in the field of conceptual art, critical theory, and disability studies.
Lapthisophon received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1979. His early work combined poetry, performance, sound art, and visual arts with postmodern philosophical concerns. He was also influenced by the legacy of the Situationists, who sought to make everyday life a focus of artistic activity.
Lapthisophon has taught at Columbia College in Chicago, the School of the Art Institute, and the University of Texas at Dallas. He currently teaches art and art history at The University of Texas at Arlington.
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[edit] Blindness
In 1994 Lapthisophon suffered a major deterioration of his vision because of an optic nerve disease, and became legally blind after intensive medical treatment.[1] His subsequent work as an installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and sound artist has been marked by this experience. Much of his work comments on, and seeks to redress, the over-emphasis on the sense of sight in aesthetic culture.
I use my own blindness as a figure for the ways we interpret the world through our own specific framing mechanisms. I have also been more and more drawn to create pieces involving a commentary on the sensory world as understood through food, cuisine, cooking, and interaction through food and the art audience. My recent cooking projects have allowed me to speak to all the senses and examine the interaction of our sensory processes.[1]
Food has been the subject of his recent installations, for example at a Berlin gallery called ZAGREUS Projekt in 2008, and at a 2009 show in San Antonio,[2] but it has also been one of his artistic concerns since even before the onset of his blindness.[3]
[edit] Works
In Lapthisophon's works, found objects, written texts and sound recordings are arranged in a way that allows "layers of meanings, allusions and associations...to accumulate" in the mind of the gallery-goer.[4] In his 2000 installation "Defense d'afficher", two large walls were erected in the gallery space and covered with fragments of found media, photos, and texts. One reviewer in Artforum called it an "overload of simultaneously public and personalized cultural shards."[5]
The juxtaposition of fragments of personal, cultural, and social history can be seen in his 2005 book Hotel Terminus.[6] This interest in juxtaposing fragments extends to many of his installations, which frequently contain found objects like old eye charts, posters and graffiti slogans.[7]
Lapthisophon's other work includes sound recordings, site-specific installations, performances, radio broadcasts, books, lectures, and drawings improvised on walls and framed in exhibitions. His work is included in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and The Dallas Museum of Art.
In 2008 Lapthisophon was awarded the prestigious Wynn Newhouse Award for artists with disabilities. In his statement upon receiving this award, Lapthisophon said, "Through investigation of issues of permanence and change in site-specific installations, I hope to...break down the barriers between where the work of art ends and everyday life begins."[1]
[edit] Exhibitions (selected)
- 2011 The Construction of a National Identity, at Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, Illinois
- 2011 Spelling Lesson, at Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Texas
- 2009 Six Years Later, at Unit B Gallery, San Antonio, Texas
- 2009 Las palabras en la sombra de esta fecha, installation at El Escaparate, in Barcelona, Spain
- 2008 Design Combine, installation at the ZAGREUS Projekt, Berlin
- 2006 Also Serve, Only Stand and Wait, installation as part of "Humans Being: Disability in Contemporary Art" at the Chicago Cultural Center
- 2006 My Task, a solo exhibition and installation at the Kunstverein INGAN, Berlin
- 2005 My Tradition My Heritage My Voice, installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
- 2004 A cell-phone-based, eight-minute non-linear sound collage, installed at the corner of Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue, in Chicago's Millennium Park[8]
- 2004 Sound installation in the Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago, incorporating fragments of texts by Friedrich Nietzsche, William Wordsworth, and Stéphane Mallarmé[9]
- 2002 With Reasonable Accommodation, installation marking the twelfth year of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990
- 1988 Pigeons go to Work in a Factory, performance in Chicago[10]
- 1986 The Public Art Show, High Museum of Art, Atlanta
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Lapthisophon, Stephen. "Statement". Wynn Newhouse Awards. http://www.wnewhouseawards.com/Artists/stephenlapthisophon.html. Retrieved April 25, 2009.
- ^ Judson, Ben. "Six Years Later at Unit B". Glasstire: Texas Visual Art Online. http://glasstire.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3274. Retrieved April 26, 2009.
- ^ Lapthisophon, Stephen (February 27, 1990), "Warming up a dish fit for revolution: Review of The Futurist Cookbook by F. T. Marinetti", Chicago Tribune: 3
- ^ Hixson, Kathryn (April 2003), "Stephen Lapthisophon", Frieze Magazine, http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/stephen_lapthisophon/
- ^ Yood, James (April 2000), "Stephen Lapthisophon - TBA Exhibition Space", Artforum 38 (8): 145–146
- ^ Lapthisophon, Stephen (2005), Hotel Terminus, Chicago: WhiteWalls, ISBN 9780945323006
- ^ Purcell, G. (October 2000), "Mean souls, like mean pictures, are often found in good looking frames", New Art Examiner 28 (2): 56
- ^ Metz, Nina (July 15, 2004), "'Listen In' as you walk through Millennium Park.", Chicago Tribune: 1
- ^ Artner, Alan (September 3, 2004), "Lapthisophon's soundscapes; Lincoln Park art installation complex.", Chicago Tribune: 25
- ^ McCracken, David (December 6, 1988), "'Impossible Pictures': This Poetry is Improvised to the Beat of Language.", Chicago Tribune: 3
[edit] External links
- Review of Lapthisophon's book: Writing Art Cinema 1988-2010 [1]
- "Florasonic": 2004 sound installation at Lincoln Park Conservatory, broadcast on WBEZ Chicago: http://www.wbez.org/audio_library/848_rasep04.asp
- Lapthisophon at the Zagreus Projekt, Berlin: http://www.zagreus.net/archiv1.php?pageNum_home=1&totalRows_home=47
- Lapthisophon's work at the Conduit Gallery, Dallas: http://www.conduitgallery.com/artist_pgs/lapthisophon.html
