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Jim Campbell
New Work, 6 September - 18 October 2014
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Jim Campbell: New Work

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Overview
Jim Campbell, New Work

Jim Campbell’s tenth exhibition at Hosfelt Gallery continues his examination of the liminal space of perception, where data becomes image and light becomes material. As a unique embodiment of Campbell’s engineering and film-making backgrounds, his art is consistently at the forefront of the development of the genre of new media. His newest body of work breaks ground in its expansion into full-color LEDs and new sculptural formats.

 

Campbell’s earliest LED works, shown in the 2000 exhibition Color By Number at Hosfelt Gallery, consisted of full-color LEDs. These first, small works served as a fertile foundation upon which Campbell could experiment with translating appropriated or original video footage into extremely low-resolution formats. But the works that followed typically involved a single color of LED – either red or white – as Campbell investigated the reduction of information to the borderline of recognition.

 

In this exhibition Campbell returns to the realm of full-color. Two works that are part of his ongoing Home Moviesseries deploy four-color LEDs, turned toward the wall (away from the viewer), to depict vintage footage capturing the significant moments in the lives of anonymous families, prior to the advent of video and before recording devices became quotidian. Viewed in low-resolution Technicolor, the birthdays, holidays and vacations become universal, turning anonymous records of the past into evocative and expressive repositories of our own personal memories.

 

Other works incorporate carved, semi-transparent resin ‘screens’ in an extension of Campbell’sReconstruction series. In these newest iterations, the resin is a sculptural equivalent of the image depicted by the LEDs. The light is distorted as it passes through the varied thickness of the resin, creating the unsettling effect that the object itself is in motion.

 

Additional works stem from Campbell’s Exploded Viewseries by exploring new three-dimensional formats, including multiple flat panels mounted at varying distances from the wall, and topographic arrangements of LEDs.

As ever-present technology distances us from sensation and contemplation, Campbell uses technologies developed for information transfer and storage to bring us back to the fundamental human experiences of perception and memory.

 

Jim Campbell was born in Chicago in 1956 and lives in San Francisco. He received degrees in Mathematics and Engineering from MIT in 1978. He transitioned from filmmaking to interactive video installations in the mid-1980s and has been working with LED technology since 1999. His work is in the collections of major museums including MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, SFMOMA, LACMA, the Berkeley Art Museum, and the San Jose Museum of Art. His numerous public commissions include the San Diego airport, Madison Square Park in New York, the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, and the new San Francisco central subway in Union Square. In 2012 he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award and SFMOMA’s Bay Area Treasure Award.

 

 

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Works
  • Still image of multiple multi-colored LEDs blurred behind thick block of resin show people walking along a sidewalk
    Jim Campbell
    Blur One, 2014
    300 4-color LEDs, custom electronics, resin
    18 x 22 1/4 x 6 inches
  • Still image of multiple white LEDs at the tips of rods mounted at irregular heights on a black board to form the shapes of waves The LEDs display moving scenes of swimmers
    Jim Campbell
    Light Topography (Jane's Pool), 2014
    1,380 LEDs, custom electronics
    32 x 48 x 8 1/2 inches
  • Still image of resin carved to depict wave forms illuminated from behind with white LEDs
    Jim Campbell
    Topography Reconstruction (Wave), 2014
    1,064 LEDs, custom electronics, carved resin
    18 1/2 x 23 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches/47 x 60.3 x 11.4 cm
    from an edition of 3
  • Still image of multiple large hanging multi-colored LED strips attached to a long horizontal metal pole at the top The LEDs light the wall behind them with blurred scenes taken from old family home movies
    Jim Campbell
    Home Movies Pause (David), 2014
    520 LEDs, custom electronics
    66 x 76 x 3 inches/167.6 x 193 x 7.6 cm
    Inquire
    %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EJim%20Campbell%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EHome%20Movies%20Pause%20%28David%29%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2014%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3E520%20LEDs%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3Ecustom%20electronics%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E66%20x%2076%20x%203%20inches/167.6%20x%20193%20x%207.6%20cm%3C/div%3E
  • Still image of rectangular piece with multiple flat bars of multi-colored LEDs that displays many blurred scenes taken from old family home movies onto the wall behind it
    Jim Campbell
    Home Movies (Contradiction), 2014
    432 4-color LEDs, custom electronics
    66 x 76 x 3 inches
    Inquire
    %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EJim%20Campbell%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3EHome%20Movies%20%28Contradiction%29%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2014%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3E432%204-color%20LEDs%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3Ecustom%20electronics%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E66%20x%2076%20x%203%20inches%3C/div%3E
  • Still image of multiple white LEDs behind carved resin which forms a self portrait of the artist The LEDs illuminate the structure to highlight its negative spaces
    Jim Campbell
    Self-Portrait in Negative Light, 2014
    1064 LEDs, custom electronics, carved resin
    23 3/4 x 18 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches
    Inquire
    %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EJim%20Campbell%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3ESelf-Portrait%20in%20Negative%20Light%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2014%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3E1064%20LEDs%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3Ecustom%20electronics%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3Ecarved%20resin%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E23%203/4%20x%2018%201/2%20x%204%201/2%20inches%3C/div%3E
  • Still image of multiple white LEDs behind carved resin which forms a self portrait of the artist The LEDs illuminate the structure to highlight its positive spaces
    Jim Campbell
    Self-Portrait in Positive Light, 2014
    1064 LEDs, custom electronics, carved resin
    23 3/4 x 18 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches
    Inquire
    %3Cdiv%20class%3D%22artist%22%3EJim%20Campbell%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22title_and_year%22%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_title%22%3ESelf-Portrait%20in%20Positive%20Light%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3E%3Cspan%20class%3D%22title_and_year_year%22%3E2014%3C/span%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22medium%22%3E1064%20LEDs%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3Ecustom%20electronics%3Cspan%20class%3D%22comma%22%3E%2C%20%3C/span%3Ecarved%20resin%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv%20class%3D%22dimensions%22%3E23%203/4%20x%2018%201/2%20x%204%201/2%20inches%3C/div%3E
Installation Views
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Untitled Install
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Blur Install
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Campbell 2014 A
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Wave Install
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Jc Ar Sf10 14 B
Press
  • Home Movies (Contradiction), 2014, 1,064 LEDs, custom electronics, 66 x 76 x 3"

    Jim Campbell @ Hosfelt

    David M. Roth, SquareCylinder, October 1, 2014
  • Jim Campbell, "Z Wall," 2014, installation view

    Editor’s Pick: Jim Campbell at Hosfelt Gallery

    Kenneth Baker, 1stDibs Introspective Magazine, September 24, 2014
  • San Francisco artist Jim Campbell has a new show at Hosfelt Gallery.

    Jim Campbell: LED Illuminates Artist’s Imagery

    Julian Guthrie, San Francisco Chronicle, September 3, 2014

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  • Jim Campbell

    Jim Campbell

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