David Horvitz: Studio Rent Editions

Having a studio space has long been integral to David Horvitz’s practice. To solve the ongoing issue of finding funding for a studio space, Horvitz devised Studio Rent Editions. Each month he produces an edition of 10 of something - a watercolor, photograph, text, ephemera, or mail art, for example. Results range from serious to humorous, from “bad” to “amazing”. Horvitz stamps, dates, numbers, and signs each edition, and then sells them for 1/10th of his studio rent. Most editions are sold out.

In 2010, I was living in Brooklyn. I had just received my MFA from Bard College and I was trying to figure out a studio situation. I don’t necessarily need a studio to make my work, but I’ve always felt it is important to have a designated place outside my home to go to. A silent place where I could sit and think. A place to drink green tea and daydream, to develop thoughts and leave those thoughts there for the next day.

Since I didn’t have a full time job, I couldn’t see myself paying rent for a New York studio over a long period of time. And so I came up with an idea. I would make an edition-of-ten artwork each month. Maybe it was a photograph turned into a postcard, or some photocopies, or a text-work, or a LaserJet print, a watercolor of a flower I stole while walking down the street, or an envelope of sand from a California beach. Maybe a rock from Death Valley, some bronze shavings from a sculpture being polished, messed up screen prints, a polaroid of my hand touching Marcel Duchamp’s grave in Rouen, France, two polaroids of the sky taken one minute apart, or a polaroid of the view of the Pacific Ocean from a cliffside in Humboldt County, California at the exact same latitude line as my studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn. I had a rubber stamp made that read Studio Rent Edition. I stamped each edition and then dated, numbered, and signed them. I sold these for 1/10th of my studio rent. If I sold all ten, they would subsidize my studio rent for that month. If I sold only a few, they would still reduce the cost of my rent. I started this in September 2010 and still make them to this day. Most of the older editions are now sold out.

This exhibition is the first time my Studio Rent Editions are being shown publicly. The entirety of this series will be on display.

All but one of the editions in this exhibition are on loan from Laurel De George, of New York City, who is one of the few people who have collected almost every one. The remaining edition is borrowed from the collection of Geoff Tuck and David Richards in California.

—David Horvitz

April, 2016, Los Angeles, California

The exhibition is in partnership with Low-Residency MFA in Visual Studies.

David Horvitz (Los Angeles, 1984) is a half-Japanese, California artist who currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He has a BA from the University of California, Riverside, CA, an MFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, and studied abroad at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. He has produced numerous books and exhibited internationally, including at the The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; MoMA, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; New Museum, New York, NY; EVA International, Limerick City, Ireland; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark; Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga, Latvia; Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Reading, PA; International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York, NY; House of Electronic Arts, Basel, Switzerland; The Kitchen, New York, NY; Surrey Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA; SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA; Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA.