Image: Richard Tuttle, Thoughts of Trees, 20, 2017
Pace Gallery is pleased to present a new body of work by Richard Tuttle in the artist’s first exhibition in South Korea. On view March 9 – May 12, 2018 at Itaewon-ro 262, Yongsan-gu, the works in Richard Tuttle: Thoughts of Treescontinue the renowned American artist’s ongoing investigation of line, volume, color, texture, shape, and form. An opening reception for the artist will be held on Thursday, March 8, from 5 – 7 p.m.
As with Tuttle’s practice as a whole, the 23 works in Thoughts of Trees occupy a space between painting, drawing, sculpture, and assemblage and draw beauty out of traditionally humble materials. In this series, Tuttle brings a quietly deliberate approach to art-making, in which every seemingly incidental shadow or line is judiciously intended. As demonstrated in this exhibition, spatial relationships and scale are central concerns for the artist and the works’ materials and presentation are always interrelated, with Tuttle consistently maintaining an acute awareness for the viewer’s aesthetic experience.
Youngjoo Lee, Director of Pace Gallery in Seoul, shared: “We are thrilled to present Richard Tuttle’s first solo exhibition in South Korea with his beautiful new series Thoughts of Trees. Throughout his long and celebrated career, Richard Tuttle has become one of the most significant artists in the world today. We look forward to introducing his delicate and intricate work to our audiences here in Seoul.”
On the occasion of the exhibition, Tuttle shared:
Thoughts of trees
give us calm
energy, peace
love, inner silence
Thoughts of Trees marks the fifth major exhibition at Pace Gallery in Seoul since its launch in March 2017 and Pace’s eighth solo exhibition for Richard Tuttle. The exhibition in Seoul will also coincide with the opening of Pace’s new gallery in Hong Kong’s H Queens Building on March 26, 2018, with an inaugural exhibition dedicated to works by celebrated Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara.
Richard Tuttle (b. 1941, Rahway, New Jersey) is one of the most significant artists working today. Since the mid-1960s, he has created an extraordinarily varied body of work that eludes historical or stylistic categorization. His direct and seemingly simple deployment of objects and gestures reflects a careful attention to materials and experience. Rejecting the rationality and precision of Minimalism, Tuttle embraced a handmade quality in his invention of forms that emphasize line, shape, color, and space as central concerns. He has resisted medium-specific designations for his work, employing the term drawing to encompass what could otherwise be termed sculpture, painting, collage, installation, and assemblage. Overturning traditional constraints of material, medium, and method, Tuttle’s works sensitize viewers to their perceptions. His working process, in which one series begets the next, is united by a consistent quest to create objects that are expressions of their own totality.
Tuttle has been the subject of numerous major solo exhibitions including his 1975 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and a 2005 retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art that toured the United States. In 2014, he exhibited in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall; simultaneously, the Whitechapel Gallery, London, presented I Don’t Know. Or The Weave of Textile Language, a survey of his textile works that traveled to the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. His work is held in more than fifty public collections worldwide, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Tate, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
The artist lives and works in Mount Desert, Maine; Abiquiu, New Mexico; and New York City.
