March 16 – June 26, 2022
An important post-Minimalist artist, Richard Tuttle (b. 1941) began working in the 1960s when Minimalism emerged as a major art movement. Minimalist artists wanted the viewer to respond to the materiality and abstraction that was in front of them, and not to any type of imitation of reality. Tuttle countered the cool precision and machine-tooling of many Minimalist artworks, as well as the idea of monumentality, with a handmade quality. Created in the ’80s, these humble notebook pages, softly marked with watercolor gestures, are like stray thoughts caught in midair, quiet haikus, or restrained fireworks. Together, they question the preciousness of fine art and replace it with intimacy in a quietly exuberant progression.