Zuma #28

Photography and Media

1978, printed 1978/79

John Divola
American, born 1949

John Divola incorporated 1970s performance art into his photographs, straddling the line between witness and participant. When he came across a vacant home on Zuma Beach in Malibu, he was drawn to the crumbling structure’s ocean-view windows. Over repeated visits he began to appreciate the subtle changes wrought by others—empty beer cans or remnants of an indoor campfire—altering the site himself by spray-painting various surfaces. He switched from black-and-white to color film to photograph the interplay of his mark making in the abandoned space with the changing ocean backdrop. For Divola, his intervention and documentation are integrally linked: “My acts, my painting, my photographing, my considering, are part of, not separate from, this process of evolution and change.”

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Photography and Media

Artist: John M. Divola
Title: Zuma #28
Place: United States (Artist's nationality)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1978
Medium: Chromogenic print
Dimensions: Image: 24.7 × 30.5 cm (9 3/4 × 12 1/16 in.); Paper: 27.9 × 35.5 cm (11 × 14 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Nancy and Mitchell Steir
Reference Number: 2015.699

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