Age 77, died on July 23, 2018, at Jefferson Hospital from complications related to Parkinson's disease. David was born in Chicago in 1941. He was a noted architect, photographer and artist. He is survived by his wife, Ligia Slovic; son, Avram Slovic; daughter, Priscille Voekler; brothers, Paul and Harold Slovic; grandson, Jacques and granddaughters, Frederique and Wilhelmina. Donations in David's name may be made either to Planned Parenthood or the Fleisher Art Memorial.
Memorial Service to be announced.
Published by Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia Daily News on Jul. 26, 2018.
• Artsy
A native of Chicago, David studied fine arts and philosophy at Cornell University before coming to Philadelphia to study architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and work with Louis Kahn. He had his own architectural practice, first as FRIDAY Architects, then as David Slovic Associates. Art work and photography was always an essential part of my efforts. His photographic work began with the book, American Diners (1980), then evolved through architectural exhibitions that included installations, collages, drawings and photography shown in national and international venues including The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1978), La Biennale di Venezia (1980), PS1, Contemporary Art Center, New York (1981), Yale University (1982) and Lisbon Trienale di Architectura (1999).
Over the past 25 years, his time was focused on making art works using a variety of simple materials manipulated through the investigation of light, movement, time, abstraction and form including photographic collages, paper assemblages/sculpture and videos. The materials are saved, collected and repurposed to produce complex images starting with a single shape. The performance of small and repetitive gestures to build each work reflects a larger metaphor of continuous return.
The photographic collages use abstract photographs of light. Multiple chromogenic prints, from an original negative, are combined to create a unique whole. Using photography’s capacity to be reproduced, multiple prints of the same image are used as individual marks that cover, overlap and expose different aspects of the same view. The original image is deformed, obscured and twisted. Hundreds of individual prints unite in the depth and movement of the flat photographs.
The shadow painting and drawing uses canvas or repurposed collages in a technique using incremental growth and the act of revealing and concealing. The support plane is covered with many tape pieces each acting as a miniature stencil. Painted over with acrylic paint or gesso, the tape pieces are pealed away revealing hundreds of “windows” onto the original support. The resulting surface resonates as a reverse image that refers to and repeats the photographic process.
The paper pieces are made with white, artist’s paper tape finished with clear, acrylic medium and/or gesso. Each individual morsel of paper is used in a collective whole. Ideas lead to form and become objects: entities with their own presence. The work manifests a concentration of space, light and form. The paper has an evocative physical presence and luminosity. This simple material suggests frailty and is expressive of a transient vulnerability, the imperfect and impermanent. Chance circumstances and endless repetitions become ordered by the insistence of a greater whole. Repetitive but never the same, its structure evident, its form is united by the commonality of the pieces. The physical reality acknowledges the myriad of arbitrary interconnections which give the larger form resonance.
The videos, considered as painting that moves, have sequence without time. They are continuous without beginning or end. Numerous iterations show repetitions where each one is the same, but not exactly. All the iterations are looped and play continuously. Most often the video brings attention to a motion of a recognizable form dissolving into chaos before re-forming to begin again from its origin. Shown on a wall mounted flat screen monitor, the video is not watched like a program but rather viewed as a painting.
His work explores the nature of abstraction, a process that moves freely between the real, the imaginary and the symbolic engaging both the intellect and emotions. In each media the work is “in motion” where the viewer’s eye, having little place to rest, moves over the surface and never seems to stop. The whole orders the plurality of the pieces.
The work is about light, about form, order, time, chaos, chance, movement, random systems, systematic randomness, about process, parts of a whole, about wholes made of parts, about imbuing material with spirit, understandings and essential assumptions.
The work has been in numerous group shows including Bridgette Mayer Gallery and Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Lori Bookstein Fine Art and June Bateman Gallery, New York; Hunterdon Museum of Art and Monmouth Museum, New Jersey; and Delaware Museum of Art, Wilmington. Solo exhibitions include the Philadelphia Art Alliance (2002), East-West Gallery, New York (2003), the Gershman Center for Arts and Culture, Philadelphia (2006), Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia (2010) and the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington (2015).
1982
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Loeb Fellowship, Architecture
1966
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Master of Architecture
1963
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Philosophy/Fine Art
1966
Paul Cret Thesis Award, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2015
30 Years of Emerging Voices, Architecture League of New York
2010
Alter Hall Collection, Temple University Press
Newhall, Edith, review, “High Light Rhythm,” Philadelphia Inquirer
2009
Donohoe, Victoria, review, “Meditations on Collage,” Philadelphia Inquirer
2006
Newhall, Edith, review, “Signs of Light,” Philadelphia Inquirer
2003
Starred mention, New York Magazine
2002
Talley, Dan, Art Papers Magazine
Review, Art Matters Magazine
Sozanski, Edward, review Philadelphia Inquirer
2001
Strauss, R.B., Avon Grove Sun
The Coventry Corporation Collection, Philadelphia, PA
Temple University Fox School of Business Collection, Philadelphia, PA
Architectural Drawing, Old Pine Community Center, Permanent Collection, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York
Architectural Drawings, University City Family Housing and Temple University Student Center, Permanent Collection, The Athenaeum of Philadelphia
1983 – 1992
Henry Luce Professorship of Architecture and Society, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
1976 – 1999
Teaching Architectural Design Studios at University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Rice University, City College of New York, and others
2013
Miami Basel Art Fair, Bridgette Mayer Gallery
2010/2011/2012
Dallas Art Fair, Bridgette Mayer Gallery
2003
Affordable Art Fair, June Bateman Gallery, New York, NY
2002
Staged, Artist Lecture Series
Curator: Aaron Levy, Univ. of Pennsylvania
2015
WHISPER, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE
2013
ENFOLDING, Art On The Avenue, Philadelphia, PA
2010
High Light Rhythm, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2006
Signs of Light, Gershman Y Center for Art & Culture, Philadelphia, PA
2003
LUMINA, East-West Gallery, New York, NY
2002
REFRACTION, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
2002 – 2004
On Line Exhibit, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
2014
FiberNext, Delaware Museum of Art, Wilmington, DE
2013
WHITE WORK, Lori Bookstein Gallery, New York, NY
Art of the State, State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
2013 and 2014
Summer Show, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2012
Out of the Blue, Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2010
Black and White, Lana Santorelli Gallery, New York, NY
Art by Architects, Center for Architecture, Philadelphia, PA
Inliquid Benefit Exhibition, Philadelphia, PA
2009
Meditations on Collage, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Out Of the Blue, CEC Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
InLiquid Benefit Exhibition, Philadelphia, PA
2008
Photography Invitational, Monmouth Museum, West Long Branch, NJ
Juror: Stephen Perloff
InLiquid Benefit Exhibition, Philadelphia, PA
PhotoWest Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2006
Juried Photography Exhibition, Muse Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Juror: Stephen Perloff
2005
Photo National Exhibition, Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA
Juror: Katherine Ware, Juror’s Award
Annual National Juried Competition, Long Beach Island Foundation for the Arts, NJ
Juror: Darsie Alexander
VOXENNIAL, Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Jurors: Elyse Gonzales and Virgil Marti
Photography 24, Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ
NEW WORK, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice, Italy
STUCTURE: Architecture and the Photographic View, Drexel University Pearlstein Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Curator: Justyna Badach
2004
Photo Review Competition: Annual National Juried Competition, The Photo Review Magazine Long Beach Island Foundation for the Arts, NJ
Juror: Katherine Ware, Best in Show
Repetition and Transformation, Philadelphia Cathedral, Philadelphia, PA
Curator: Elizabeth Doering
PHOTOGRAPHY 23, Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ
Juror: Ruth Thorne-Thompson, Juror’s Award
PHOTOIMAGE 03, Center for the Photographic Image, Nexus Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Juror: Edith Newhall, Juror’s Award
2003
ABSTRACTION 2002, The STAGE Gallery, Merrick, NY
PHOTOCOLLAGE, June Bateman Gallery, New York, NY
2002
ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clifton, NJ
Curator: Donna Gustafson
2001
[Some] Photography [Abstract], Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA
Now – In Real Time, Nexus Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Curator: Susanne Wheeling
1999
Triennali de Architectura, Lisbon, Portugal
1982
Emerging Voices, Architectural League, New York, NY
Recent Work, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Recent Work, Open Atelier, New York, NY
1981
Projective Images, Installation/Collage, PS1, Contemporary Art Center, New York, NY
1980
Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Young Architects, Yale University, New Haven, CT
1978
Process & Work, A Few of My Favorites, Installation/Collage, Peale House Gallery, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2015
Gone and Away, videos, shown at WHISPER, Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE
2014
Focus, video, shown at FiberNext, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
2013
Gone and Quiver, videos, shown at ENFOLDING, Art on the Avenue, Philadelphia, PA
