RICHARD TUTTLE

In conjunction with the opening reception for this exhibition, Pace will host a special book signing with the artist in celebration of his forthcoming publication: Richard Tuttle: A Fair Sampling. Collected Writings 1965-2018. The event will take place from 5-7pm at the gallery’s newly opened research library at 540 West 25^th street, which holds over 10,000 volumes of Pace’s vast archival materials and catalogues. The 500-page book, edited by Dieter Schwarz, spans Tuttle’s prolific career as both a poet and artist. Published by Buchhandlung Walther König in Germany, the monograph will be released in January 2020. Advance copies of the book will be available at the event.

The genesis for Richard Tuttle Days, Muses and Stars stemmed from his time spent at his recently acquired property in Mount Desert, Maine. His expansive new studio and the vast surrounding landscape energised Tuttle with an influx of new ideas, resulting in one of the most productive and fertile times of his artistic career.

Comprised largely of plywood and spray paint, these new assemblages draw on a range of influences from the nine muses in Greek mythology, after which some of the works are titled, to broader themes concerning nature and the cosmos. In Tuttle’s own words:

‘The entire

Body of work

Was produced

In the summer

Of 2019

After ar

Duous beg

Ginings where

No consis

Tent forms

Or materials

Took place, dom

Inated, a

Breakthrough

Took place

That showed

Itself as

A zig zag be

Tween two

Surfaces

That let

Light into

A darkness

Much the

Same as

When light

Penetrates

The dense for

Rests of

Maine How a

A little piece

Of light can

Get through

(Or a deer

Can so ele

Gantly slip

Through the

Density) is

Astonishing

And pictoral

The density

Is also pic

Toral

In fact

It is known

Just as much

As the light

Penetrating

It

All the

Elements of

A picture are

Here

So much

So they can mine

Picture making

In ways never

Before possible

It is so rich

In fact it has

To be held

Together by

Humanity

For the au

Diance it is

Intended

To serve

The group of work called

Stars are this group

The

Group called

Muses shows

The capacity

For portrayal

Each work

Showing each

Of the nine

Muses from

Hesiod’s

Theogony

Not as il

Lustration

But from his

Source Days

Shows the

Ability to

Play and dis

Play from the

Same source,

Love, and light.’

-Richard Tuttle, Zurich, November 1, 2019

Richard Tuttle has revolutionised the landscape of contemporary art, challenging rules and notions of genre and media. His work exceeds rational determinations, sensitising viewers to perception and the unconscious, and engages aspects of painting, drawing, sculpture, bookmaking, printmaking, and installation.

Exposed to the Pop movement and the beginnings of Minimalism as a young artist, Tuttle began to explore the possibilities of material and form freed from historical allusion and precedent. Early investigations into the merging of painting and sculpture are evident in his ‘Constructed’ paintings which exist in a liminal space between mediums. For Tuttle, the 1980s and 1990s marked wider experimentation with material and a move toward in the-round constructions. He began incorporating the frame as an element in his compositions, collapsing the boundaries between the artwork and its surrounding space.

Tuttle’s engagement with scale, light, and systems of display have endured throughout his oeuvre and can be seen in his attention to marginal spaces such as floors, corners, and over door frames. Rejecting the rationality and precision of Minimalism, Tuttle embraced a handmade quality and the invention of forms that emphasise the occupation of these spaces along with volume. Over the course of his career, he has continued to overturn traditional constraints of material, medium, and method that engage a variety of traditional and non-traditional processes such as in his wire, small-scale collage, dyed cloth, and octagonal pieces. The beauty and poetry that Tuttle draws out of everyday materials can be experienced in works that exist in the present moment, reflect the fragility of the world, and allow for individual experiences of perception.