Eric Orr documentary photographs and papers, 1959-2012, undated

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Summary

Creators:
Orr, Eric, 1939-1998 and Orr, Elizabeth, 1984-
Abstract:
The Eric Orr papers consist primarily of photographic prints, slides, transparencies, and negatives that document the Light and Space movement artist's paintings, sculptures, and public fountains. Also present are schematic drawings and plans for Orr's public works and ephemera, clippings, and administrative files that detail Orr's life and practice.
Extent:
24.06 Linear Feet (37 boxes, 2 boxed-rolls, 19 flatfile folders. Computer media: 10.90 GB [195 files])
Language:
Collection material is in English.
Preferred citation:

Eric Orr papers and documentary photographs, 1959-2012, undated, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2017.M.13.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2017m13

Background

Scope and content:

The archive consists primarily of photographic prints, slides, transparencies, and negatives that document the artist's paintings, sculptures, and public fountains from the 1970s to the 1990s. Also present are schematic drawings for Orr's public works projects and their sites. To a lesser extent, the archive includes papers that detail Orr's practice, with notes that relate to installation plans and project proposals, ephemera that pertains to exhibitions of Orr's work, typescript accounts of Orr's friendship with artist James Lee Byars, and transcripts of interviews conducted by the artist's daughter Elizabeth for her documentary, Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Work of Eric Orr.

Biographical / historical:

Eric Orr was a key figure in the Light and Space movement in Southern California. Born in 1939 in Covington, Kentucky, Orr graduated from the Kentucky Military Institute in 1958 and spent his early years traveling across the United States and Cuba. He briefly attended the University of Cincinnati in the early 1960s, where he produced his first sculpture, Colt .45, a work later known as Saturday Night Special. The work featured a mounted pistol facing a chair; viewers could sit and control the pistol via a foot pedal.

Orr participated in civil rights protests in Mississippi in 1964 before relocating to Los Angeles in 1965, where he began to produce performances, sound art, and perceptual installations, using the elemental qualities of silence, sound, darkness, and light as material. Among these works was Zero Mass (1972-1973), an immersive 38-foot-long installation made of paper, where up to five people could enter a dark oval chamber and, after 10 to 12 minutes, experience altered vision from the lack of spatial perception.

Developing alongside both Southern California conceptual art and the perceptual-based installations commonly associated with Light and Space art, Orr's work spanned a variety of artistic practices that challenged the definition of artmaking while also incorporating a broad range of cultural references, including space icons found in ancient religions and cultures, Egyptian symbolism, and Buddhist spiritualism.

From the 1970s onward, Orr created a diverse body of atmospheric monochrome paintings using airbrushing and oil paint, wall-mounted sculptures, and public artworks which incorporated a variety of elements including fire, water, gold, volcanic ash, meteorite dust, and his own blood.

Orr participated in a number of international exhibitions during his life, including documenta VII (1982), the Sydney Biennale (1986), and the Venice Biennale (1986). His work can be found in many public and private collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Orr died in Venice, California, in 1998.

Sources consulted:

Eric Orr (1939-1998): A Survey of Works. Santa Monica, CA: Robert Berman Gallery, [2007].

Eric Orr: Time's Shadow. New York, NY: Scott Hanson Gallery, 1987.

Eric Orr: A Twenty Year Survey. San Diego, CA: University Art Gallery, San Diego State University, 1984.

Phillips, Glenn. Acquisition Approval Form for "Eric Orr (American, 1939-1998), archive, c. 1959-1998, accession no. 2017.M.13," September 10, 2019.

Acquisition information:
Gift of The Estate of Eric Orr. Acquired in 2017.
Processing information:

Sarah Mackenzie Wade processed the collection and wrote the finding aid in 2019.

Digital materials were processed by Laura Schroffel in 2019. Files require further processing before access copies can be made available.

Arrangement:

Arranged in three series:Series I. Documentary photographs, 1964-2001, undated;

Series II. Schematic drawings, 1987-2001, undated;

Series III. Papers, 1959-2012, undated.

Physical location:
Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for use by qualified researchers, with the exception of box 13, folder 11, which is unavailable pending conservation treatment. Born digital content will be made available on-site only, through the digital preservation repository. Born digital content and audiovisual materials unavailable until reformatted. Contact reference for reformatting.

Terms of access:

Contact Library Reproductions and Permissions.

Preferred citation:

Eric Orr papers and documentary photographs, 1959-2012, undated, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2017.M.13.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2017m13

Location of this collection:
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688, US
Contact:
(310) 440-7390
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