Richard Artschwager: Hair

Richard Artschwager A maverick who began his career as a cabinet-maker, the widely-acclaimed American artist Richard Artschwager has for forty years produced a wide-ranging body of work that often merged the machine with the hand-made. The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is proud to present the first focused look at a material he has used throughout his career: rubberized horsehair. Emerging from the artist's famous blps series he began in 1968, the hair works depart from the crisp lines and sharp forms of his better-known Formica furniture works, blurring the clarity of sculptural form. In contrast to a contemporary art conversation weighed down by irony, strategy, and cool self-reflexivity, this new exhibition – featuring hair-covered blps, exclamation marks, corners, and hair-covered furniture pieces – foregrounds Artschwager's sincere celebration of the experiential knowledge of objects and pictures, and his passion for locating the body and soul of an image.

Richard Artschwager
Hair
curator: Anthony Huberman