David Horvitz

David Horvitz
David Horvitz
Born	David Horvitz Los Angeles
Nationality	United States
Known for	Mail art, photography
Spouse(s)	Zanna Gilbert

David Horvitz is an American artist who uses art books, photography, performance art, and mail art as mediums for his work. He is known for his work in the virtual sphere. He is currently in residence at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, New York City.

Horvitz uses art books, photography, performance art, watercolor, and mail art as mediums for his work.

The 1970s conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader has been an important influence on Horvitz's art. Horvitz's movie “Rarely Seen Bas Jan Ader Film”, for example, shows a silent black and white clip a few seconds long of a man riding a bicycle into the sea. This evokes the imagery of Ader's works around the theme of falling and the myth surrounding Ader's disappearance at sea. Horvitz's book “Sad, Depressed People” relates back to Ader's movie “I'm too sad to tell you” in that all of the Horvitz collected show people with their heads in their hands, as does Ader.

Another influence on Horvitz's work is On Kawara. As David put it “I relate to On Kawara’s work because of its existential and even zen readings.”

In 2009, Horvitz started the “241543903/Head-in-a-Freezer” meme. People were encouraged to take a picture of their heads in a freezer and upload the image with the tag “241543903”. That way everyone could see each other's images by Googling “241543903”. The meme first gained popularity on Orkut, Google's social network in Brazil. Horvitz spread the word by sending 100 fliers to a friend in Brazil who handed them out to random young people. It is a rare case where an internet meme was spread through IRL means.

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