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Staying ContemporaryRichard Tuttle
Richard Tuttle reflects on a decades-long career, and the conceptual, thematic, and stylistic threads that can be consistently traced through his 26 New York gallery exhibitions. Tuttle was interviewed at Pace Gallery, where fittingly his installation 26 provided an archival record of these solo shows, collectively exposing a profound intimacy in postminimalism.
“I’m very committed to the idea of making an art that stays contemporary,” says Tuttle. The artist goes on to describe his interest in creating works that fuse together “the kinds of things that only happen once and the kinds of things that happen always.” Tuttle also shares advice for young artists and reflects on the value of art: “Art’s importance comes when it’s a tool for life, when it makes life more available for us.”
More information and creditsCredits
Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Ian Forster. Editor: Jarred Alterman. Camera: Jarred Alterman. Sound: Ian Forster. Artwork Courtesy: Richard Tuttle & Pace Gallery. Archival Photography Courtesy: Duane Michals. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York & Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Art21 Exclusive is supported, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; 21c Museum Hotel, and by individual contributors.
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Even when considering his three-dimensional works, Richard Tuttle commonly refers to his art as drawing rather than sculpture—the distinction emphasizing the diminutive scale and idea-based nature of his work. Influenced by calligraphy, architecture, and poetry, he subverts the conventions of modernist sculptural practice by creating small, eccentrically playful objects in humble, fragile materials. Tuttle also manipulates the space in which his objects exist, placing them unnaturally high or oddly low on a wall—forcing viewers to reconsider and renegotiate the white-cube gallery space in relation to their own bodies.
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