John Latham (artist)

src: www.tate.org.uk

John Aubrey Clarendon Latham , (February 23, 1921 - January 1, 2006) is a Zambian-born British conceptual artist.

Video John Latham (artist)

Live and work

Latham was educated at Winchester College. In World War II he ordered a torpedo motor boat at the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. After the war he studied art, first at the Regent Street Polytechnic and then at Chelsea College of Art and Design. He married fellow artist and collaborator Barbara Steveni at Westminster in 1951.

This spray can be the main medium of Latham, as can be seen in the Caught Up with Yellow Object (oil painting, 1954) in the Tate Gallery collection. In addition to spraying paint, Latham tore, sawed, chewed and burned a book to create collage material for his work, such as Film Star (1960).

Latham's event-based art is very influential in the performing arts. In 1966, he participated in the Destruction of the Arts Symposium in London led by Gustav Metzger along with Fluxus artists such as Yoko Ono, Wolf Vostell, and Al Hansen.

His "Skoob" ("book" written upside down) working using books or materials derived from them has the power to surprise. He moved from a collage to a book tower that was later burned, evoking an uncomfortable echo of the Nazi regime's public burning of the forbidden books.

From 1983 Latham lived and worked at his home, Flat Time House in Peckham. In 1991 he produced God's Great works, a conceptual artwork featuring a copy of the Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud volume, each cutting two and sticking to a sheet of glass. In 2005, Tate Britain held an exhibition of Latham.

Latham died at Kings College Hospital, Camberwell, on January 1, 2006.

In 2010 John Latham: Canvas Events published by Ridinghouse.

In 2016, the Henry Moore Institute presented a Lesson in Sculpture with John Latham, an exhibition that discusses Latham's visionary contributions to studying sculptures, carrying sixteen Latham works, spanning 1958 to 2005, into conversations with six twelve statues. by artists working in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Like Latham, the early members of Pink Floyd attend Regent Street Polytechnic. In 2016, Pink Floyd released a collection of rare and unreleased material on the set of Pink Floyd The Early Years. On the second CD of this collection there are nine versions of their previously unreleased song, "John Latham".

In 2017, Latham's works are featured in the 57th Venice Biennale main show, Viva Arte Viva .

Maps John Latham (artist)

References

src: www.tate.org.uk

Source

• Hamilton, R. (1986) John Latham. In: Lisson Gallery (1987) John Latham: Early Works . London: Gallery Lisson.

src: www.tate.org.uk

Further reading

• Allan, Kenneth R. "Business Interests, 1969-72: NE Thing Co. Ltd., Les Levine, Bernar Venet, and John Latham" at Parachute 106 (April-June , 2002): 106-122.
• Latham, J. (1984) Report from a Surveyor . London; Stuttgart: HansjÃÆ'¶rg Mayer Edition.

src: www.tate.org.uk

External links

• John Latham Clock House
• John Latham Online Archive Project (Ligatus, University of the Arts London)
• Tate Britain's 'Latham in Focus' exhibit website
• Lisson Gallery
• Latham's website and flat-time discussion - Archived March 11, 2005 at Wayback Machine.
• The Least Event The Future of Flat Time HO - The Least Event, Camberwell Arts Week (24 and 25 June - 11am - 6pm)
• 'Portrait with Words' from John Latham by Mark-Steffen Goewecke

Source of the article : Wikipedia