David michalek biography

Bio — DAVID MICHALEK STUDIO.
David Michalek was born and raised in California.
David Michalek is an artist who takes the concept and techniques of portraiture as the starting points for the creation of his works, on both a large and small-.

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David C. Michalek

DAVID MICHALEK is an artist who takes the concept and techniques of photographic portraiture as the starting points for the creation of his works on both a large and small scale and in a range of mediums. These works frequently incorporate performative techniques and storytelling devices and relational aesthetics. He has been drawn in particular to projects that bring together diverse groups of people in settings ranging from galleries to public spaces, churches and community organizations to health-care facilities. Michalek earned a B.A. in English Literature from UCLA and, while in college, worked as an assistant to noted photographer Herb Ritts.

His work has been shown nationally and internationally, with recent exhibitions at the Lincoln Center Festival, the Venice Biennale, the Brooklyn Museum, Yale University, and The Kitchen. Last summer, he presented an outdoor video installation at the L.A. Music Center entitled Slow Dancing – a series of 45 larger-than-life, hyper-slow-motion video portraits of dancers and choreographers from around the world, displa

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Slow Dancing is a series of 43 larger-than-life, hyper-slow-motion video portraits of dancers and choreographers from around the world, displayed on multiple screens. Each subject's movement (approximately 5 seconds long) was shot on a specially constructed set using a high-speed, high-definition camera recording at 1,000 frames per second (standard film captures 30 frames per second). The result is approximately 10 minutes of extreme slow motion.

This project came to fruition in 2007, but had been been gestating for much longer. It's not always easy to point to the specific factors that bring a new work, or the impulse to create one, into being. The overlapping issues, concerns and passions that merge with opportunity are not always obvious.

One impulse was clear. I love dance. I love watching it. I love what dancers do, who they are, and what they stand for. Dance is an underappreciated art form—the NEA tells us that only eight percent of the U.S. population will ever see a live dance performance. This led me to the idea of making a visual statement centered on celeb

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David Michalek is an American visual artist and director whose work is closely tied to an interest in the contemporary person, which he explores through the use of live performance, filmmaking, photography, drawing, installation, relational aesthetics and public projects. His work often concentrates on carefully-staged marginal moments that develop density with minimal action through interplays of image, sound, and decelerated time. Exploring notions of durational and rhythmic time, his works engage and generate intimate yet open-ended narratives. His recent work considers various forms of slowness alongside contemporary modes of public attention. Much of his practice plays with creating forms of “Social Sculpture” – works with an aesthetic that can provoke situations that are uniquely social and collectively unique. He is particularly drawn to projects that bring artists and ideas into effective pairings, in settings ranging from museum galleries, theaters and public spaces, to houses of worship, community organizations and centers of learning. His solo