“I guess this print is a kind of self-portrait. I look at it in my room that way. I think I am quite complex with competing negatives competing with the positive. Where there may not be a place for this in the West, it is probably why I feel so comfortable in the East. The keijiban was the perfect place to work all this out and be alone in public.” (Richard Tuttle)
Richard Tuttle was born in 1941 in Rahway, New Jersey (USA). He lives in New York City, Abiquiú, New Mexico, and Mount Desert, Maine.
Richard Tuttle is a central figure in the art of the last sixty years, whose influence has been decisive for several generations of artists. Initially associated with the post-minimalist movement, he soon went his own way, developing a challenging body of work that is subtle, eccentric, and radical in its quest for independence.
His work is embodied in a wide variety of media, from sculpture and painting to artist's books and textile design, but it is probably drawing, considered in its broadest sense and extending to calligraphy and poetry, that forms the backbone of his work. Often made from unassuming, fragile materials (cardboard, wire, cotton fiber, twigs, etc.), his works are the result of constant experimentation with form, scale and mode of display, verging on the indeterminate. They prompt the viewer to shed interpretative reflexes and open themselves to the affirmation of an elusive presence that is both fleeting and enduring.
In the words of critic Germano Celant, "Tuttle's art avoids the concept of truth. It is impossible to conceive of a fixed and rigid truth of work; this fixity is only transitory. […] The thing defines itself and, in the spirit of Zen, is left to itself.”
His work is represented by David Kordansky Gallery (Los Angeles, New York), Tomio Koyama Gallery (Tokyo), Galerie Lelong & co (Paris, New York), Galerie Greta Meert (Brussels), Pace Gallery (New York, London, Seoul, Tokyo, etc.), Galerie Schmela (Düsseldorf), Annemarie Verna Galerie (Zürich), etc.
