David Hartt, "Urban Futures of the Recent Past"

This talk borrows the sub-title from Reyner Banham’s seminal book  Megastructure , published in 1976.  As a reference, Banham’s text critiques the failure of translating the energy and optimism of 60’s era civic projects into lasting institutions; thus creating fertile conditions for the seeds of our own post-ideological crisis to germinate in the capitalist restructuration of the mid 70’s.  Hartt will focus on the relationship between the speculative and documentary aspects of his practice and, in particular, works that continue this narrative forward into our own age of fiction.   David Hartt (b. 1967, Montréal) lives and works in Philadelphia where he is an Assistant Professor, in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. His work explores how historic ideas and ideals persist or transform over time.   Recent solo exhibitions include in the forest at the Graham Foundation and My Building, Your Design: Seven Portraits by David Hartt at The Art Institute of Chicago.  Additionally, his work has been included in several group exhibitions including Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 at The Museum of Modern Art, America Is Hard to See at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Hedges, Edges, Dirt  at the ICA in Richmond.   His work is in several public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, The National Gallery of Canada and The Stedelijk Museum.   In 2018 Hartt was the recipient of both a Pew Fellowship and a Graham Foundation Fellowship, in 2015 he was awarded a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant, in 2012 he was named a United States Artists Cruz Fellow and in 2011 he received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award.   Hartt is represented by Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago, David Nolan Gallery, New York and Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin