TUTTLE, RICHARD
1941 Rahway, NJ/USA

Title: Octagon Cloth Piece.
Date: 1967.
Technique: Canvas, double-hemmed, washed and dyed.
Measurement: 148 x 150 cm.


The artwork is attached directly to the wall using just a few nails.



Provenance:
- - Galerie Rudolf Zwirnerr, Cologne

- Private collection, Cologne (acquired from the previous owner in 1969)



- A poetic composition that explores the relationship between space and coloured surfaces

- An early work that loosens the constraints of minimalist principles in favour of artistic improvisation

- In private ownership for over 50 years



Subjective Sensibility Instead of Objective Minimalism

The work of Richard Tuttle encompasses a wide range of forms of expression, including sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, installation, and furniture. In contrast to this media diversity stands Tuttle’s concentrated and disciplined working method, which the influential curator Harald Szeemann once described as post-minimalist. It was through Szeemann’s legendary exhibition When Attitudes Become Form that the work of the American artist first gained recognition in Europe.

Coming from modest circumstances, Tuttle early on understood art as an existential necessity. Since his student years and until her death, he maintained an important friendship with the grande dame of ascetic abstraction, Agnes Martin. Initially inspired by Minimal Art, Tuttle pursued a radical reduction of formal elements through the use of simple forms and found materials. Yet whereas Minimalist artists sought the greatest possible objectivity and artistic neutrality, Tuttle searched for an individual, poetic engagement with line, surface, color, space, and framing.

Beyond rational determinism, he began exploring the aesthetic possibilities of material and form through subjective sensitivity, liberated from historical tradition. He works with plywood, wire, paper, tape, string, and fabric, often imbuing his works with a sense of vulnerability through “imperfect” elements such as notches, chips, and irregularities. “I love materials and, on the other hand, I’m not interested in them at all. They are tools to arrive at a good image.” — Richard Tuttle, quoted in Art21 “Extended Play” (2016).



The Freedom of Ephemerality / Open Processes

Tuttle conceives of ephemerality as a form of freedom—freedom from the classical ideals of permanence and finality traditionally associated with the perfect work of art. More broadly, he claims independence from conventional and canonical knowledge in favor of an autonomous perception of reality rooted in individual feeling.

Often appearing almost incidental, his works seem to exist only momentarily. Through eclectic additions, he emphasizes handcrafted improvisation while playfully undermining the boundaries between drawing, painting, and sculpture. Loose linear structures made of wire emerge as fleeting traces of artistic process within space.

His first sculptural miniatures, created between 1963 and 1965, relied on simple constructive principles: by slitting, folding, and cutting paper, Tuttle transformed sheets into small cubes marked by symbolic cut-outs. From the very beginning, his works reveal themselves as testimonies to their own making. Every economical gesture, every intervention into material remains visibly present within the final form.



Loosely Tensioned Octagon

In 1967, Tuttle created a series of fabric objects. Beginning with templates made from delicately watercolor-tinted paper, he cut canvas into irregular shapes only loosely resembling octagons. The bundled fabric was then immersed in dye baths containing ordinary household colorants of varying shades. Once dried and merely smoothed by hand, folds and irregular transitions of color remained visible.

Tuttle attached these fabric objects loosely to the wall using only a few nails or spread them across the floor. The slack, wrinkled textile stands in direct contrast to the tautly stretched canvases of traditional painting. At the same time, because of the dyeing process, Tuttle’s Shaped Canvases resist asserting themselves as paintings.

Simultaneously, the casualness of their handling and the indeterminacy of their placement and orientation in space undermine any stable sculptural presence. What remains are hybrid forms marked by lightness and permeability—works that appear less as definitive statements than as spontaneous propositions unfolding in space.

Bettina Haiss



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#Richard Tuttle #Minimalism #USA #Contemporary Art #Painting #Shapes #1960s #Post War.







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