Richard Tuttle At David Kordansky LA; Calder Installed By Tuttle At PACE LA

These linked exhibitions, Tuttle/Calder Tentative ended recently (I know, I know). I wasn’t going to write about them because I had mixed feelings about the works and the exhibitions but, in the end, I decided that in of itself was worth writing about.

Let’s start with the Richard Tuttle exhibition at David Kordansky. Presented were a series of works by Tuttle that were inspired by Calder. Some were maquettes, some were actual works. Richard Tuttle who is now in his 80s has a long history as a conceptual and minimal artist. His confidence in his own talent, and his determination to follow his own path has long made him an artist’s artist.

The works at Kordansky, although at moments conceptually interesting, suggesting sculptural moments in ways that relate to Calder’s work, seemed slight to me.

On YouTube there are several videos of Tuttle speaking about his work and they are fascinating. Truth be told, I like what he says more than I like his work. I get it, but it’s just not really my taste.

By contrast, the exhibition at PACE LA (which I regret to say is no longer up) of small works by Calder, some of them models or maquettes, installed by Tuttle, was really interesting. Fascinating, actually. Tuttle found brilliant ways to make us look at the sculptures by building stands with cutouts, or Tuttle-like angled vitrines to house the little Calder sculptures. He was forcing the viewer to really see Calder, see him in ways that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

I enjoyed it, I felt challenged by it. I felt that as a conceptual work, the installation was itself Art. Art by Tuttle that I appreciated more than what I saw at Kordansky. Which is why I wondered about writing about it at all.

Sometimes a work of art that makes you think about Art is better than the Art you see on a gallery’s wall.