Davi Det Hompson (1939–1996), also known as David E. Thompson, born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and raised in Warren, Ohio,[1] was a Fluxus book artist,[2] concrete poet, creator of mail art,[3] sculptor and painter living and working in Richmond, Virginia.
An early collaborative audio performance by Davi Det Hompson was his 1969 participation in Various—Art by Telephone, a vinyl LP compilation by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
His book art pamphlets, which contained typographically experimental, enigmatic, sometimes wry or sardonic texts, were shown in one-person exhibitions at Scott-McKennis, a 1970s gallery in the Carytown West of the Boulevard section of Richmond.
[10] Baldwin+Hompson also curated the portfolio Nine is a Four Letter Word, produced by the Key Gallery in Richmond, VA, exhibited in Philadelphia, Dallas, Cologne, Germany, and now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
[20][21] His last exhibition, which opened on October 18, 1996, and was still on view at VCU's Anderson Gallery after his heart attack and death, was a double installation piece and a collaborative effort with Cliff Baldwin entitled WRDZ.
[22] In 1999, Virginia Commonwealth University's Anderson Gallery featured a retrospective of the works of Hompson, who died December 8, 1996, of a heart attack at age 57 at Richmond's Chippenham Hospital.
"[27] Correspondence between Davi Det Hompson and artists Anna Banana, Fletcher Copp, David Sucec, and Alice Aycock and poets, Madeline Gins, Lyn Hejinian, Richard Craven, and Dick Higgins are in this collection.