The Art of Richard Tuttle

last updated 8 January 2015

Richard Tuttle's first exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1975 generated a storm of controversy, said Mark Stevens in New York magazine. Tuttle's minimalist art—lines made from wire and rumpled clothes hung upon a wall'”looked 'œshockingly naked, or at least not dressy enough for a museum.' The Tuttle retrospective now at the Whitney 'œcloses that art-world chapter.' His work still provokes questions as to its legitimacy as art, but it no longer shocks. Rather, it's surprising that it generated any fuss at all. 'œHe makes subtle, whimsical, and tender things.' The Whitney show includes varied works made over 40 years, including drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations. It opens with Letters (The Twenty-Six Series) from 1966, in which typographical characters that aren't letters 'œrise like floating sculptures, playfully opening up the idea of visual and literary meaning.'

Tuttle's succeeding Cloth Pieces dance across a far wall and tumble to the floor, said Michael Kimmelman in The New York Times. These lightly tinted crumpled fabrics pick up on the same shapes as the letters, exploring the terrain betwixt painting and sculpture. 'œThey are like heavenly doodles, as ethereal as angels' breath.' Toward the back of the show are Tuttle's 1970s wire pieces, tracing faint lines on the wall and 'œcasting shadows that make yet more lines.' Another room holds his 1980s assemblages, which look positively 'œbaroque by comparison: twigs, blocks, thicker wire, and corrugated cardboard' are fashioned into bright confections. Approach this art any way you want. It's purely abstract, with no central focus, beginning or end. But the beauty of Tuttle's sublime work 'œis ultimately in its concentration on materials for their own sake, and the space they occupy.'