Drawing
Untitled (1051), ink and watercolor on paper, 2006,
15 x 17 inches
Richard Tuttle
Waferboard 3
Acrylic on waferboard, 20 1/4 x 26 inches, 1996
A few notes about Richard Tuttle. His retrospective closed this past weekend, where it was on view at the Whitney Museum in New York. I managed to make it to the show just in time.
Richard Tuttle’s work rewards looking and then looking again. The work, which at first blush can appear self conscious in its modesty and seemingly casual execution, goes on to display a finely calibrated, rigorous, and ultimately generous formalism. Sometimes offhand details, such as a shadow cast by a piece of wire nailed to the wall, can shift your sense of perspective violently, and you realize that you’re looking at a sculpture that strongly feels it was born to be a drawing. Looking closer, you realize the shadow the wire casts on the wall is echoed in the form of the thinly drawn pencil line that lies right next to it. The more you look, the more you realize that every formal element in the work is calculated to resonate not only with the other parts of the work, but also the other sculptures next to it, in addition to the space in which the work lives. It’s as if Tuttle made a piece of art whose purpose was to describe itself to you, slowly and patiently. It’s a good conversation.
Virginia
Virginia is a digital artwork by the British artist Julian Opie, who for some time has been making these very pared down portraits of people and landscapes. Sometimes these people are walking, sometimes (like Virginia) they’re simply staring straight ahead, blinking. What I think is really startling about his work is that no matter how reductive these portraits get, they always seem to be engrossing and compelling to watch. I think he’s somehow managed to wrangle elements of both Pop Art (and here someone like Allan D’Arcangelo comes to mind) and contemporary advertising to make these weird vessels that can both contain our projections and fantasies and help us make new ones.
Paul Thek
Here’s a Paul Thek sculpture, called Blind today Deaf tomorrow (1969/71, 65 x 64 x 25 cm) which I’m guessing is part of one of his larger installations/environments. Paul Thek is probably best known for the Technological Reliquaries series, which were made in response to the Vietnam War. He abruptly stopped making those pieces when he realized he was being referred to as the “Meat Man” and went on to make everything from paintings to installations and more. One of the most amazing ones is The Tomb-Death of a Hippie, which you can read about here. Paul Thek died in 1988, and a lot of his work, including incredibly elaborate installations such as The Tomb, has been destroyed. The Paul Thek Project was started this past summer in order to document and contextualize his work, much of which cannot be recreated.
I’m Too Sad To Tell You
Ree Morton
