ART CITIES:N.York-Richard Tuttle

Emerged in the ‘60s in a generation of process-oriented Postminimalism, Richard Tuttle has created a remarkable and varied body of work that defies historical or stylistic categorisation. His visual language has a lot in common with painting, sculpture, poetry and drawing, yet it appears to exist in the space between these practices. His process is deeply instinctual and responsive, crafting unique objects that must be encountered on their own terms.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Pace Gallery Archive

Richard Tuttle wants viewers to use their visual and tactile senses, his works are deliberately hung lower than eye height to relate them equally to the hand, allowing the viewer to experience a sense of the hand and eye being engaged simultaneously, which is the experience of the artist in creating the works. The artist intends the viewer to engage in new sensory experiences, and in doing so, expand their contact with the totality of human existence. “One remarkable phenomenon of my work is its love for being hung at a height of fifty-four inches from the floor… This height brings me in contact with anything that’s ever existed in human life”. “26” is Richard’s Tuttle new solo exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York with works spanning 50 years of his career. The exhibition includes works from Tuttle’s 26 solo gallery exhibitions in New York (Betty Parsons Gallery, BlumHelman Gallery, Mary Boone Gallery, Sperone Westwater and Pace Gallery). Extending from Tuttle’s constructed paintings shown in 1965 at Betty Parsons Gallery to his Looking for the Map works from Pace’s 2014 exhibition, the exhibition trace the artist’s work brought together for the first time. Using a historic framework as a way of looking forward, the exhibition includes works such as “M – Violet – M“ (1965), a plywood relief with a painted monochromatic surface, and “First Paper Octagonal” (1970), an irregularly shaped octagon cut from white paper and affixed directly to the wall.  Also the exhibition includes 3 of Tuttle’s galvanized tin “letters”, a wire piece, a notebook drawing, a textile work, a selection of wall-bound assemblages, and other works that reveal the artist’s enduring focus of what he has referred to as “Making something which looks like itself”.

Info: Pace Gallery, 510 West 25th Street, New York, Duration: 6/5-/6/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.pacegallery.com