David Lynch’s Bright Ideas to Hit Hollywood Art Fair

The filmmaker and artist’s lamps — which his gallery calls light-emitting sculptures — are set to go on display at the poolside Felix art showcase, taking place at the Hollywood Roosevelt starting July 29

The filmmaker and artist’s lamps — which his gallery calls light-emitting sculptures — are set to go on display at the poolside Felix art showcase, taking place at the Hollywood Roosevelt starting July 29.

During the pandemic, filmmaker and artist David Lynch decided to make lamps, something he has done on and off throughout the years. Some are small, and some are tall, some made of Douglas fir, some include metal, and a selection of them will be on view at the Griffin Kayne gallery’s booth at Felix Art Fair at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel from July 29 to Aug. 1. “I think the language is more sculpture than lamp. It’s a sculpture that emits some type of light,” gallery co-owner Bill Griffin tells THR of the works by Lynch, who was an artist before he was a filmmaker and attended a series of art schools, including Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. It was there that he began making short films and later enrolled at AFI Conservatory. “You walk in, and they are different dimensions and different shapes, different materials, and they all have this soul of light that comes from it, and it just pulls you in,” Griffin says of the lamps, which will be accompanied by a few of Lynch’s canvases. “That’s what I’m really excited to do: introduce this work out into the world. And to do that at Felix, it’s a very interesting venue.” Co-founded by Art and Mills Morán, along with art collector and former Disney executive Dean Valentine, Felix started in 2019 as counterprogramming to the inaugural Frieze L.A., taking art out of an antiseptic tent and placing it in a distinct L.A. environment. With art displayed on furniture, in bathrooms and closets, Felix creates a unique, immersive experience. It will be Griffin Kayne’s first in-person fair since the pandemic; this year’s event will feature only L.A. galleries, including Blum & Poe and Shatto Chateau, and will take place exclusively in the cabana rooms surrounding the pool painted by David Hockney. Says Griffin, “It’s a very interesting and intimate space.”

“It all plays back to the unconscious,” says Griffin Kayne gallery’s Bill Griffin, of new works by filmmaker and artist David Lynch.

David Lynch and his Matchstick Lamp C, made of steel, pin and plexiglass.