David Hall (born 1937 in Leicester, died October 2014) was an English artist, whose work contributed much to establishing video as an art form.

Life and work

David Hall studied at Leicester College of Art and the Royal College of Art. During the 1960s he worked as a sculptor and showed his work internationally. and by 1975 had transformed this into the first time based media degree course in UK.

In 1976 he made This is a Television Receiver, transmitted by BBC television. Here David Hall revisited the theme of his classic This is a Video Monitor made in 1973. Other works by artists had been broadcast by now, but Hall set out to turn the domestic television set into a form of video sculpture through the intervention of his transmitted images.

Hall has sculpture, films, videotapes, installations and/or related material in the collections of the Tate Gallery London, Museum of Modern Art New York, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Madrid, Gemeente Museum The Hague, West Australia Art Gallery Perth, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Arts Council of England, Contemporary Arts Society, British Film Institute, Great South West Corporation Atlanta USA, Richard Feigen Gallery New York, Visual Resources Inc. New York, Royal College of Art, Harvard University, ZKM Karlsruhe, and other public and private collections worldwide. Films and videotapes held by Lux London, National Film and Television Archive, Rewind Archive Scotland, and the Venice Biennale Archive.

In January 2012 David Hall received the inaugural Samsung Art+ Lifetime Achievement Award from an international jury at a British Film Institute celebratory event.

Tate acquired his iconic work 'TV Interruptions' (aka '7 TV Pieces) in 2014, and featured it (coincidentally) during the month of his death at TATE Britain. Richard Saltoun Gallery, London showed a selection of his work from July 17–14 August 2015, David Hall Situations Envisaged, curated by Stephen Partridge.

References

Further reading

  • Documenta 6 exhibition cat., Paul Dierichs KG and Co, Kassel, Germany, 1977.
  • Kunst und Video, DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne, 1983
  • Video-Skulptur, Retrospectiv und Aktuell 1963-1989, DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne, 1989
  • Videography: Video Media as Art and Culture, Sean Cubitt, MacMillan 1993.
  • A Directory of British Film and Video Artists, ed. David Curtis, Arts Council/John Libbey, 1996.
  • Diverse Practices: A Critical Reader on British Video Art, ed. Julia Knight, University of Luton/Arts Council England, 1996
  • Video: un art contemporain, Françoise Parfait, Editions du Regard, Paris 2001.
  • Video Art: A Guided Tour, Catherine Elwes, I.B. Tauris, 2005,
  • Experimental Film and Video: An Anthology, Jackie Hatfield ed., John Libbey, 2006.
  • 100 Video Artists, edited by Rosa Olivares, EXIT Publications in collaboration with the Fundacion ICO, 2010,
  • REWIND: British Artists' Video in the 1970s & 1980s, (Sean Cubitt, and Stephen Partridge, eds), John Libbey Publishing, 2012
  • The End of Television: David Hall's 1001 TV Sets (End Piece), Steven Ball, Moving Image Review and Art Journal, Vol 2, No 1, Intellect Books, 2013.
  • REWIND Artists' video in the 70s and 80s: Interview with David Hall
  • REWIND interview transcribed (PDF)
  • Video Art: the early years
  • Mick Hartney, Video art, MoMA, 2009
  • A. L. Rees, A History of Experimental Film and Video, British Film Institute, 1999 & 2011]
  • Live in Your Head: Concept and Experiment in Britain, 1965-75, catalogue, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 2000
  • Chrissie Iles, A Situation Revisited - David Hall: A Situation Envisaged: The Rite II (Cultural Eclipse) , Factor 1989, FACT, Liverpool, 2001
  • Sean Cubitt, Greyscale Video and the Shift to Colour , Art Journal magazine, Vol. 65, No. 3, Fall 2006
  • First Generation: Art and the Moving Image 1963-1986, exhibition catalogue, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2006
  • Expanded Cinema: Art, Performance, Film, eds. A. L. Rees, David Curtis, Duncan White, Steven Ball, Tate Publishing, 2011