Cointet (Guy de) audiovisual material and storyboards, circa 1960s-1976

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Summary

Title:
Guy de Cointet audiovisual material and storyboards
Dates:
circa 1960s-1976
Creators:
Cointet, Guy de, 1934-1983
Abstract:
The collection comprises film, video, and storyboards by French-born, Los Angeles-based artist Guy de Cointet. Included are reels of film, videotapes and other materials relating to performances, such as Two Drawings, Lost at Sea, Going to the Market, At Sunrise a Cry was Heard and the Halved Painting. Fifty-one storyboards relate to Cointet's film I Dream (Old Woman).
Extent:
3.63 Linear Feet (7 boxes)
Language:
Collection material is in English, with some French.
Preferred citation:

Guy de Cointet audiovisual material and storyboards, circa 1960s-1976, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2017.M.9.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2017m9

Background

Scope and content:

The collection includes 26 reels of Super 8mm film, seven reels of videotape, three videocassettes, and ten reels of audiotape, comprising films, fragments, interviews, and posthumous documentation of art exhibitions and performances of Cointet's works by other artists.

Additionally, the collection holds 51 storyboards on 3 5/8 x 4 7/8 inch cards for the film I Dream (Old Woman).

Biographical / historical:

Artist Guy de Cointet, was born in Paris, France in 1934, but lived and worked largely in Los Angeles from 1968 until his death in 1983. He was active in the Conceptual Art movement that emerged in Los Angeles in the 1970s, and is recognized as one of the major figures of this art group.

Due to his father's military career, Cointet spent his childhood and teenage years in Oran, Algeria, where he met and formed friendships with Yves Saint Laurent and Jérôme Ducrot. Years later, he returned to France to study art at the Ecole nationale supérieure d'art et de design, but did not finish his studies. He then moved to Paris in the early 1950s, where he worked as a fashion illustrator and graphic designer for the Jardin des Modes magazine with his childhood friend, Ducrot, who was a fashion photographer. In 1966, Cointet accompanied Ducrot on a trip to New York City, where he met Susan Hoffman, known as Andy Warhol's muse, Viva, who introduced him to Larry Bell, an American sculptor. He formed a working relationship with Bell, acting as his assistant for seven years. When Bell returned to Los Angeles in 1968, Cointet joined him. Cointet remained in Los Angeles until his death.

During his lifetime, Cointet produced a rich body of work that reflects his interest in invented languages, rebuses, mathematical games, and coded and symbolic systems of representation. He is known for his highly conceptual and cryptographic works on paper, but he also experimented with audiovisual media. His theatrical performances and experimental films evoke surreal, dreamlike, and often barely-sensical narratives that combine a unique mix of television soap operas, post-structuralist theory, and French avant-garde literature. In addition to producing his own work, Cointet taught performance seminars as a guest lecturer at the Otis College of Art and Design from 1975 to 1977, then known as Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design.

Cointet's work, barely recognized during the artist's life, was shaped by the writings of the French poet Raymond Roussel, Futurism, and Andy Warhol's pop art. A number of Los Angeles artists, including Paul McCarthy, Allen Ruppersberg, Mike Kelley, and John Baldessari were strongly influenced by de Cointet's work and some became good friends with the artist. De Cointet's performances and his works are held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Sources consulted:

De Brugerolle, Marie, "Tell Me More… About Guy de Cointet: A History of the Film by Marie de Brugerolle." Excerpt from "Who's that guy? – Tell me more about Guy de Cointet (DVD), p. 2-11. Les presses du réel, July 2014. https://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/file/ouvrage/3365/extrait_pdf_3365.pdf

Phillips, Glenn, "Acquisition Approval Form for 'Guy de Cointet (French, 1934-1983), Storyboard for I Dream (c. 1969-71), and collection of film, video, and audio materials (c. 1962-83)," accession no. 2017.M.19, July 7, 2016.

Piron, François, "Biography," Guy de Cointet Society. May 2016. http://guydecointet.org/en/preface.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Brian Dailey and Paula Ballo-Dailey. Acquired in 2017.
Processing information:

The collection was processed by Jade M. Finlinson in 2018. Petra Warren updated the audiovisual descriptions and expanded the biographical note in October 2020.

Arrangement:

The material is arranged into two series: Series I. Audiovisual material, circa 1960s-1976; Series II. Storyboards, circa 1969-1971.

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

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Jade M. Finlinson and Petra Warren
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-04-01 11:05:12 -0700 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

Audiovisual material is unavailable until reformatted.

Terms of access:

Contact Library Reproductions and Permissions.

Preferred citation:

Guy de Cointet audiovisual material and storyboards, circa 1960s-1976, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2017.M.9.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2017m9

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