Art Institute of Chicago

The best animals are the flat animals (stacked monitor edition)

Diana Thater · 1998

Provenance

Ownership history

The artist; sold through David Zwirner, New York, to Gregory Linn and Clayton Press, Devon, PA, May 22, 1999 [invoice; copy in curatorial object file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, June 10, 2025.

Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Projects 64: Diana Thater, Sept. 24–Nov. 10, 1998, no cat. no.; Oberlin, OH, Allen Memorial Art Museum, The best space is the deep space, Time-Based Media, 1998-99: Diana Thater, Oct. 2, 1998–Jan. 3, 1999; West Hollywood, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Schindler House, The best animals are the flat animals--the best space is the deep space, Oct. 28, 1998-Jan. 17, 1999; Ontario, The Art Gallery of York University (now the Goldfarb Gallery), The Best Sense is the Nonsense, Feb. 10–Apr. 4, 1999; St. Louis, MO, Saint Louis Art Museum, The best outside is the inside, Feb. 19-Apr. 18, 1999 (Monitor version exhibited in Oberlin and St. Louis only)
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, The American Century: Art & Culture 1900-2000, Part II, Sept. 26, 1999–Feb. 13, 2000, not in cat. (another edition).
Bremen, Germany, Kunsthalle Bremen, Diana Thater: Keep the Faith, A Survey Exhibition, Mar. 21-Jun 20, 2004, no cat no.; concurrently at Siegen, Germany, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, Diana Thater: Keep the Faith, A Survey Exhibition, Mar. 19–June 20, 2004. (Bremen only)

Literature

Peter Noever, The Best Animals Are the Flat Animals, the Best Space Is the Deep Space, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: MAK Center for Art and Architecture, 1998), cover (color ill.), 13-15, 30-35, 37-41, 44-47.
Allen Memorial Art Museum, A Two-Part Installation by Diana Thater: The Best Space Is The Deep Space, exh. pamphlet (Oberlin, OH: Allen Memorial Art Museum, 1998), n.p.
Rochelle Steiner, Currents 77: Diana Thater, The best outside is the inside, exh. cat. (St. Louis: St. Louis Art Museum, 1999), n.p., as The best animals are the flat animals (monitor version).
Barbara Engelbach and Wulf Herzogenrath, Diana Thater: Keep the Faith, A Survey Exhibition, exh. cat. (Cologne: Salon Verlag, 2004), 82 (ill.), 101, as The Best Animals Are the Flat Animals monitoredition.
Lynne Cooke, Lisa Gabrielle Mark, Christine Y. Kim, Giuliana Bruno, Michael Govan, Jason E Smith, et al., Diana Thater: The Sympathetic Imagination, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2015), 52, 163, 164 (color ill.), as The best animals are the flat animas, stacked monitors.

Comparables