Robert Therrien

Inspired by objects in the everyday world and his personal memories, Los Angeles-based artist Robert Therrien recycles and reinterprets common images in uncommon ways. In this exhibition, MCASD brings together two major works by Therrien—an enormous wood dining table and chairs, and a brand new work of an over-sized folding table with folding chairs. Fusing Alice in Wonderland with the Duchampian tradition of the readymade, Therrien constructs works that confound expectations of scale and functionality. Standing over eight feet tall, visitors can literally walk under each table.

Therrien's first wooden table was originally installed as part of inSITE94 in the former baggage room of the Santa Fe Depot, now the Foster Gallery in MCASD's new Jacobs Building. MCASD is pleased to collaborate with the artist to reinstall the newer version of the work in the same, but now renovated, space along with the inaugural presentation of his new folding table sculpture. The exhibition demonstrates Therrien's continued interest in transforming the ordinary by dramatically altering scale to evoke poetic, open-ended connotations.

Robert Therrien
MCASD DOWNTOWN