JOHN DIVOLA Vandalism

Description

JOHN DIVOLA Vandalism

JOHN DIVOLA Vandalism includes work made between 1974 and 1975. Divola, in his mid-twenties and without a studio to work in, travelled across Los Angeles armed with a camera, spray paint, string and cardboard.

Divola would find and vandalise vacant homes with abstract collections of graffiti-like marks, ritualistic configurations of string hooked to pins, and torn arrangements of cardboard. Afterwards, he would then document the result. The project merges the documentary approach of forensic photography with staged interventions that echo performance, sculpture and installation art.

The work was created at a time when the ‘truthfulness’ of photography was being called into question. This project was a conceptual sabotage of the distinctions between photographic and artistic practices.  Vandalism helped to establish Divola’s highly distinctive visual language.

You can see more images from the series here on Wallpaper*.

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