Gallerynote 2/2001

March 20 to March 31, 2001

RICHARD TUTTLE, New books and portfolios
Richard Tuttle (born 1941) has produced graphic portfolios in regular succession over the past years. Top-class printers have lent him a helping hand in this work, willing to engage in partnership-based dialogue. This collaboration typically extends over a longer time span not determined in advance. For the most part, aquatint and etchings are used in these graphic series. The different printing plates enable a flexible working process, offering possibilities for discovery and invention.

This accommodates the artistic intention which, acting as a guideline, forms the basis for all of Richard Tuttle’s work. Each group of works is development from a current artistic ‘insight’. The respective idea is considered from all sides, questioned, examined for its conclusiveness and visualizability. As it begins to bear fruit, the success becomes apparent. The lightness and the wonderful richness of the harvest is the result of a laborious work process that finds itself continually confronted with disaster, failure.

The work on series of prints offers a situation differentiated from the isolated and self-referential reflection of the studio setting. The printer is a technical advisor, coworker, performer. Again and again, the artisan presents the interim results, with discussions freely and easily influencing the assessment of the prints being presented. As is also the case with bookmaking, which requires the involvement of many other parties, this aspect is highly embraced by Richard Tuttle.

As an artist who observes his world with tense sensibility and attentiveness and time and again opens himself up to inspiration, time and again brings himself to learn, this parameter is an uncommon gift for him.

The exhibition includes the following portfolios:
The Edge, 1998; Mandevilla 1-7, 1998; Edges, 1999; Any 2 Points, 2000; Line, 2000; Up, to 7, 2000.

Notice

Richard Tuttle's work group 'Perceived Obstacles' is currently on view in the Westfälisches Landesmuseum Münster (2/18 – 3/5/2001). This exhibition is to be presented for a third time in December at the Academy of Arts in Berlin.

Sol LeWitt’s 'Incomplete Open Cubes' from 1974 are on display in the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, in a striking exhibition curated by Nicholas Baume (01/26 – 04/29/2001). This thematic show, devoted to an outstanding and fundamental artistic complex of works, will be taken over by three further institutions in the USA through April 2002. A catalogue with interesting text contributions is available.