George Legrady
George Legrady (born in 1950, in Budapest) is a multidisciplinary, interactive media artist. He began his photographic artistic practice in Montreal. In 1973, he received his first major project, a photo documentary in northern Quebec of four James Bay Cree communities in response to the James Bay Cree hydroelectric conflict. Following graduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute in the mid 1970s, his work resulted in numerous projects that focused on a semiotic analysis of the photographic image. In 1985, he produced a photo documentary on the visual syntax of public billboards in four major Chinese cities.
Legrady began to explore the potential of digital technologies in the early 1980s in the studio of Harold Cohen at the University of California in San Diego. His contribution to the digital media field since the early stages of its formation in the early 1990s has been in intersecting cultural content with data processing. This is a means of creating aesthetic and socio-cultural narrative experiences. In 1997, the digital catalog of his solo museum exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Museum of Photography, tracing the transition from photography to interactive media installations in his artworks, is now featured online at the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Arts, Science, & Technology.
His most significant interactive digital media arts projects include the “Anecdoted Archive from the Cold War” in 1993, “Slippery Traces” in 1995, published by the ZKM Museum in Karlsruhe. His data visualization project "Making Visible the Invisible" for the Seattle Central Library will be operational until 2014. It was featured in the Whitney Museum Artport in 2005. Commissioned by the Centre Pompidou and travelling internationally from 2001-2006, the project “Pockets Full of Memories” invited visitors to contribute objects in their possession, digitally scanning and describing them. This information was stored in a database and organized by the Kohonen Self-Organizing Map algorithm that positioned objects of similar descriptions near each other in a two-dimensional map. The map of objects was projected in the gallery space and was also accessible online at where individuals in the gallery and at home could review the objects and add comments and stories to any of them.[1]
He is Director of the Experimental Visualization Lab in the Media Arts & Technology doctoral program at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He has previously taught at the University of Western Ontario, the California Institute of the Arts, the University of Southern California, the San Francisco State University, and the Merz Akademie of Visual Communication.
Selected Solo Exhibitions/Installations
2012 | Refraction, Nature Morte, Berlin, Germany |
2011 | Refraction, Edward Cella Art+ Architecture, Los Angeles, CA |
Cell Tango, in RAM, The Museum, Kitchener, Ontario. CA | |
Sprengle Museum, Hanover, Germany | |
Science, Memory, Art, Panel at Edward Cella Gallery, Los Angeles, CA | |
2010 | Grow: From Nature to Beyond, Edward Cella Art + Architecture, Los Angeles, CA |
Blink, ArtWithoutWalls, Louisville, KY | |
Cell Tango, Mediations Biennale, Poznan, Poland | |
Cell Tango, featured artwork at the Lawrence Hall of Science | |
We Are Stardust, at CODE Live, Vancouver Olympics, Vancouver BC | |
2009 | Blink and Stardust, Edward Cella Art + Architecture, Los Angeles, CA |
Cell Tango, Wellesley College, Mass | |
Blink, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV | |
Blink, Stiftung Ahlers Pro Arte, Hanover, Germany | |
2008 | We Are Stardust, Caltech NASA Spitzer Center and the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA |
Cell Tango, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI | |
Pockets Full of Memories in "V2_UNstable Media", Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei | |
Cell Tango, TAP Theatre, Poitiers, France | |
China in Transition, Stiftung Ahlers Pro Arte, Hanover, Germany | |
Anecdoted Archive from the Cold War, in Drifting Slowly, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto | |
George Legrady: Stardust, Edward Cella Art +Architecture, Santa Barbara, CA | |
2007 | Algorithmic Visualizations, Edward Cella Art +Architecture, Santa Barbara, CA |
Blink, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA | |
2006 | Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto, Canada |
Sensing Speaking Space at ARCO Art Fair, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Madrid, Spain | |
Algorithmic Visualizations, Telic Gallery, Los Angeles, CA | |
2005 | Anecdoted Archive from the Cold War, Centre Gantner, Belfort, France |
Pockets Full of Memories, Cornerhouse Gallery, Manchester, UK | |
2004 | Algorithmic Visualizations, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK |
Pockets Full of Memories, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland | |
2002 | Chance Encounters, 7th/Metro Subway Station, Los Angeles Metro Rail Arts Commission, Los Angeles, CA (interactive installation) |
Sensing Speaking Space, Activating the Medium Festival, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA | |
2001 | Pockets Full of Memories in Interactivités, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France |
George Legrady New Media, Galerie Klaus-Peter Goebel, Stuttgart, Germany | |
1999/2000 | Transitional Spaces, Rotunde, Siemens Headquarters, Munich, Germany (Commissioned work for the opening of the newly designed Richard Meier Siemens Headquarters) |
1998 | Tracing, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA |
1997/1998 | Tracing, Kunst und Austellunghalle der Bundes Republic, Bonn, Germany |
George Legrady: from Analogue to Digital, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Canada (a two museum retrospective exhibition) (Anecdoted Archive; Slippery Traces) | |
1996 | Equivalents II, Open Space Gallery, Ansel Adams Center, San Francisco, CA |
1995 | George Legrady Interactive Media Art, Rovaniemi Art Museum, Rovaniemi, Finland, (Anecdoted Archive, [the clearing], Equivalents II) |
1994 | ([the clearing]) New Langton Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA (premiere interactive Installation, two person with Gilles Peress) |
1992 | Nothing Essential Happens in the Absence of Noise, Watertoren, Hedendaagse Kunst, Vlissingen, the Netherlands |
1991 | Between East & West (1956 >>>>1989) YYZ Gallery, Toronto, Canada |
1987 | From Noise to Signal, University of Southern California Atelier Gallery, Santa Monica, CA |
1986 | Posing & Studies for Monuments, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA |
1985 | George Legrady, Yajima Galerie, Montreal, Canada |
1984 | Stock Footage, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA |
1981 | George Legrady, Yajima Galerie, Montreal, Canada |
Staged Photography, George Legrady, PSI, New York, NY | |
Floating Objects, London Regional Art Gallery/Museum London), London, Ontario, Canada |
Awards & Commissions
- 2012 National Science Foundation Arctic Social Science Grant
- 2011 Halifax Central Library, Halifax, Nova Scotia (finalist)
- 2011 Robert W.Deutsch Foundation Fellowship
- 2008 Data Flow, Corporate Executive Board, Washington, DC
- 2005/2006 Kinetic Flow, Vermont/Santa Monica Station, MetroRail RedLine, Los Angeles, CA
- 2004 Computer Integrated Media Awards from the Canada Council
- 2003/2005 Making Visible the Invisible, Seattle Public Library, Seattle, WA (Commission for the Rem Koolhaas library)
- 2002 Daniel Langlois Foundation for the Arts, Science and Technology
- 2002 Chance Encounters, 7th/Metro Subway Station, Los Angeles Metro Rail, Los Angeles, CA
- 2002 Creative Capital Foundation (Emerging Media grant)
- 2001 Pockets Full of Memories, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
- 2000 Eternal Summer, Ebner, Stolz Associates, Stuttgart, Germany
- 1999 Transitional Spaces, Siemens Rotunde Headquarters Building, Siemens Kultur Programm, Munich, Germany
- 1997 Tracing, Kunst und AustellungHalle, Bonn, Germany
- 1997 Computer Integrated media Awards from the Canada Council
- 1996 Artslink, NEA grant
- 1995 National Endowment for the Arts Visual Fellowship
- 1994 Canada Council Arts Award
Select Collections
- 2012 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (pending)
- 2012 21c museum, Cincinnati
- 2011 Irmas Foundation, Los Angeles (?)
- 2009 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Vernon Photo Collection Acquisition
- 2008 D.E.Shaw & Co Consulting, NYC
- 2008 Corporate Executive Board, Arlington, Virginia
- 2008 Pro Ahlers Arte Foundation, Hanover, Germany
- 2006 Los Angeles MTA Metro Rail Santa Monica/Vermont Station
- 2005 Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa
- 2005 Seattle Public Library
- 1996 Centre for Art and Technology, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
- 1992 Centre Pompidou musée d'art moderne, Paris
- 1987 American Museum of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC
- 1990 Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa
- 1986 National Galleries of Canada, Ottawa
- 1980 London Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario, Canada
- 1984 Musée d'art contemporain, Montreal
Notes
- ↑ Legrady, George (2002). "Pockets Full of Memories: an interactive museum installation". Visual Communication. 1 (2): 163.
External links
- George Legrady Studio
- Media Arts & Technology Program
- George Legrady: From Analogue to Digital, Langlois Foundation site
- The Art of Mapping Statistics Interview by Roberto Simanowski, Dichtung Digital, journal für digitale ästhetik
- KinoCaviar.com George Legrady’s Refraction: Research in the Form of a Spectacle By Diane Sippl
References
- Christiane Paul (2007). Digital Art, London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20367-9.
- Vesna, Victoria (2007). Database Aesthetics Art in the Age of Information Overflow, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press & Hudson. ISBN 0-8166-4119-6.
- Wands, Bruce (2006). Art of the Digital Age, London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-23817-0.
- Image, Language, and Belief in Synthesis By: George Legrady
- Intersecting the Virtual and the Real: Space in Interactive Media Installations By: George Legrady
- MIT Press Journals, LEONARDO, August 2004, Vol. 37, No. 4, Pages 315-321. Posted Online March 13, 2006. Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Digital Media Arts: A Psychological Perspective on the Production Process
- Pockets Full of Memories: an interactive museum installation
- Modular Structure and Image/Text Sequences: Comics and Interactive Media By: George Legrady