Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Finding aid for the David Lamelas papers, 1964-1997
2005.M.12
No online items
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: David Lamelas papers
Date (inclusive): 1964-1997
Number: 2005.M.12
Creator/Collector:
Lamelas, David, 1946-
Physical Description:
4.5 linear feet
(5 boxes)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, California, 90049-1688
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: The personal and professional papers of Argentinean sculptor and filmmaker David Lamelas provide an overview of Lamelas's
artistic practices and the development of his work from sculpture to architecture, film, and conceptual installations. Drawings,
sketches, notes, plans, photographs, correspondence, sketchbooks, and other papers produced or collected by Lamelas document
selected work from his early period in Buenos Aires, through his projects in Europe and North America and his latest work
in the 1990s.
Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language: Collection material is in English and Spanish.
Argentinian artist David Lamelas is one of the pioneers of Conceptual Art. The son of Spanish immigrants, Lamelas was born
in Buenos Aires in 1946 (or 1944?). While in his teens, he studied art at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes, with an early
focus on sculpture; he began exhibiting his work in Buenos Aires around this time. At the age of 21, he represented Argentina
at the 1967 Bienal Internacional de Sáo Paulo, with a work of architectural intervention, Dos Espacios Modificados (Two Modified
Spaces). That same year, Lamelas created his important installation, Situación de tiempo (Time situation), in Buenos Aires.
He represented Argentina at the XX Venice Biennale with the installation piece "Office of Information about the Vietnam War
at Three Levels: The Visual Image Text, and Audio."
In 1968 Lamelas left Argentina for London, where he studied sculpture at St. Martins School of Art. During his time at St.
Martins he developed an interest in film. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s Lamelas continued to work and exhibit in Europe.
He was a pioneer in the radical repositioning of sculpture at this time, using new materials and modes of production. Lamelas
moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s and currently makes his home in Berlin. He has continued to make films and videos, including
works such as "Film Script," "To Pour Milk Into a Glass," and "The Dictator." Among his better known non-film works are "The
Other Side/El Otro Lado," an installation project that was part of InSITE97 binational exhibition of art in public places,
and "Publication," a book as art exhibition.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
David Lamelas papers, 1964-1997. The Getty Research Insititute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2005.M.12
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2005m12
Acquired in 2005.
Jennifer Osorio processed and arranged the archive in March 2006, under the supervision of Jocelyn Gibbs.
Scope and Content of Collection
The papers of David Lamelas primarily comprise preparatory notes, sketches and drawings for installation and film works from
the period after he left Argentina in 1964 to 1997, when he was living in Los Angeles. The archive also contains a number
of photographs and negatives (including some personal images), manuscripts of film scripts, correspondence, and assorted ephemera
such as gallery invitations and publicity postcards. The archive includes several small journals that contain sketches and
notes, and writings on a variety of topics.
The sketches, drawings and notes give particular insight into the working processes involved in the creation of highly conceptual
art in a variety of mediums. The collection provides a portrait of his working processes and the development of his work from
sculpture to architecture, film, and conceptual installations. This fundamental period of Lamelas's artistic practice became
the basis of his future work, for which he has received critical acclaim.
Arranged in 8 series:
Series I. Sculptural and installation works, 1960-2004;
Series II. Films, 1969-2004;
Series III. Textual works, ca. 1970;
Series IV. Proposals and notes for unrealized works, undated;
Series V. Correspondence, 1956-1977;
Series VI. Personal documents and writings, 1967-1994;
Series VII. Photographic materials, 1944-1997;
Series VIII. Printed matter, 1967-1989
Lamelas, David, 1946-
Bienal Internacional de São Paulo
Centro de Artes Visuales (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella)
Art--Modern--20th century
Artists--Latin American
Cinematography, Abstract
Conceptual Art
Experimental Films--Argentina
Installations (Art)
David Lamelas: fifteen years: October 1978, Center of Art and Communication.
Correspondence
Drawings (visual works)
Film stills
Photographic prints
Photographs, Original
Posters--20th century
Screenplays
Sketchbooks--20th Century
Storyboards
Bienal Internacional de São Paulo
Centro de Artes Visuales (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella)