{"data":{"id":"13860","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":13860,"topgoose_id":1612,"tms_id":13860,"display_name":"William Leavitt","sort_name":"Leavitt William","display_date":"1941–","begin_date":"1941","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eWilliam Leavitt arrived in Los Angeles as a graduate student in 1965 and joined a circle of young Conceptual artists, such as \u003ca href=\"/artists/11577\"\u003eBas Jan Ader\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"/artists/2550\"\u003eAllen Ruppersberg\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"/artists/55\"\u003eJohn Baldessari\u003c/a\u003e, who were then experimenting with performance and narrative formats. Leavitt developed a polyvalent practice that encompasses sculpture, music, installation, writing, drawing, painting, theater, and photography. Many, and occasionally all, of these elements are present in the stage sets for which he is most widely recognized and which he started making in the early 1970s, as his fascination with the culture and artifice of the film and television industries of Hollywood took hold.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLeavitt conceived of the sets not as vehicles for live performances but as static installations revealing his interest in “the edge between . . . illusion and how it’s supported.” Using a handful of “props”—ersatz contemporary furnishings accessorized with plastic plants and his own oil paintings—Leavitt constructed fictional fragments of suburban LA interiors modeled on those memorialized in countless mid-twentieth-century Hollywood productions, evoking a vapidity that is both familiar and unnerving. On the exposed backs of the stage flats that serve as the sets’ walls, he wrote short texts conjuring opening scenes from fictionalized soap operas.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLater in the decade, Leavitt wrote, directed, and created sets for two plays and embraced the opportunity to generate multiple images of individual props in design drawings, storyboards, and performance photographs. The photomontage \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/43172\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eSpectral Analysis\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e is related to the same- titled one-act play written by Leavitt and first performed upon a stage set built by him in 1977. The photograph juxtaposes three eerily lit images whose narrative links are obscure: a midcentury starburst light fixture, a woman’s hand bearing a large cocktail ring, and a rainbow-hued curtain. With a layout reminiscent of a filmstrip or storyboard, the photograph begs the viewer to make sense of these disparate images, yet Leavitt never delivers on this promise. With its scientific title, \u003cem\u003eSpectral Analysis\u003c/em\u003e merges Leavitt’s interests in the domestic soap opera and the fantastical science fiction, without presenting a consequential plot or action.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500073052","wikidata_id":"Q16105677","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:31:49.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-11T07:03:56.323-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/13860/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/13860/exhibitions"}}}}