Tape Project, Akron Art Institute (maquette)

Jaime Davidovich first began exploring texture in his early monochromatic works. He later experimented with the real and conceptual boundaries of his paintings by eliminating their frames and taping them directly to the wall. By the early 1970s, he worked specifically with adhesive tape, placing it on walls, floors, stairways, sidewalks, and TV monitors. Through these creative actions and interventions, he expanded the spaces where art could be displayed. Tape Project, Akron Art Institute, which originally took place in Ohio, is one of Davidovich’s first tape installations. The clear tape highlights imperfections of the wall and the mode of installation results in an uneven surface marked with bubbles, folds, and wrinkles. Davidovich made the conceptual leap from actual tape to video tape, becoming an early innovator in video art and in using public television as a platform for performance.