Sculptor Richard Tuttle, an Anti-Modernist, Takes on Modernist Icon Alexander Calder in Two L.A. Exhibitions
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Loading... - Trinidad Vera
- 10 Mar 2023
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On a recent afternoon, speaking by phone from the parking lot of a New Mexico doctor’s office, the artist Richard Tuttle talked reverently of Alexander Calder, the 20th-century sculptor of lightweight steel assemblages whose parts turn or sway ever so gently. Tuttle’s works look quite unlike Calder’s: Tuttle’s sculptures are scrappy and sometimes even incomplete-looking, while Calder’s are glossy, gorgeous objects that command attention in a white-cube gallery space. But even Tuttle had to admit, with some degree of awe, that Calder “brought sculpture —modern sculpture—to a climactic finale.”
Then Tuttle paused. “I’m not a modernist,” he continued. “I’ve been against modernism since I began. So part of doing this show was meant to have a modernism-defining Calder take on other significant meanings and take steps beyond modernism.”
Tuttle was referring to the exhibition of Calder’s art that he curated for Pace Gallery’s Los Angeles space. It’s one of two Tuttle-oriented shows on view in L.A. now, the other being a solo exhibition at David Kordansky Gallery that features two new series by him that both contain a connection to Calder’s work. Across the two exhibitions, one can observe how Calder, an art-historical giant, continues to influence all kinds of artists working today, even those whose practices seem diametrically opposed to his own. Read More..
