Robert Therrien (November 17, 1947 – June 17, 2019) was an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures.[1][2] His work reimagined and reinvented objects from everyday life, such as a set of table and chairs or stacks of plates, turning them into monumental immersive sculptures.[3] Los Angeles–based, Therrien was described as being possessed by a sense of wonder over commonplace experiences[4]
Robert Therrien | |
|---|---|
| Born | Robert Edward Therrien November 17, 1947 |
| Died | June 17, 2019 (aged 71) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Alma mater | California College of the Arts Brooks Institute University of Southern California |
| Occupation | Sculptor |
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Early life
editTherrien was born in 1947 in Chicago, Illinois.[5][6][7] He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his family when he was around five years old. After high school, he began his formal art education in Oakland at the California College of the Arts but then moved to Southern California. In 1970, he enrolled at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara where he received a degree in photography while also studying painting at the affiliated Santa Barbara Art Institute.[8][6] He went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.[5][7]
Career
editTherrien began exhibiting in galleries in Los Angeles and New York in 1975. His first major solo museum exhibition was at Los Angeles's then-brand new Museum of Contemporary Art in 1984.[9] He was represented Leo Castelli in New York and Konrad Fischer in Düsseldorf throughout the 1980s and 90s, during which time his work received increasing international recognition.[10] He was represented by Gagosian Gallery at the time of his death.[6]
In 1991, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía presented a major survey of his work.[5] The works during this time were described as poetically reductive sculptures and paintings of simple but evocative shapes like snowmen, keyholes[11] and chapels. The artist has said he has always been interested in "subjects with fables attached."[12] The objects he chose to recreate not only had to be beautiful to his eyes but they had to have a "universal" shape that is recognizable to everyone.[12]
Therrien's work underwent a shift in emphasis in the early 1990s, his sculptures becoming larger in scale and more clearly representational.[2] He moved from making modestly sized handmade objects to industrially fabricated, large-scale immersive works.[4] Around this time the artist said that "...as (my work) becomes less and less abstract in appearance—its shape more obviously derived from common objects—it also gets more thickly surrounded by abstractions, in the sense of associations or ideas it may refer to."[2]
The artist's solo exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2000 examined the work at what proved to be a crucial moment in his career.[2] The show featured monumental new sculptures, including Under the Table, 1994, No title (blue plastic plates), 1999, and three gigantic beards. "Therrien's recent work is at once playful and dark," critic Christopher Knight proclaimed in his review of the LACMA show. "Therrien has been making exquisitely crafted sculptures that are easily recognized as objects encountered in the daily world. Yet, however recognizable the object, the sense of estrangement in these new sculptures is more pronounced than ever before."[13]
Selected Museum Exhibitions
edit- Public Art Fund, New York, Robert Therrien: Table and Six Chairs, 2005 [14]
- Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California, Robert Therrien, 2007 [15]
- Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland, Robert Therrien: Works on Paper, 2008 [16]
- Tate Modern, London, ARTIST ROOMS: Robert Therrien, 2009-2010 [17]
- De Pont museum, Tilburg, Netherlands, Robert Therrien: Sculptures and drawings, 2011 [18]
- The MAC (Metropolitan Arts Centre), Belfast, Northern Ireland, Robert Therrien: No title (table and four chairs), 2012 [19]
- The Contemporary Austin, Texas, Robert Therrien, 2015 [20]
- Denver Art Museum, Colorado, Robert Therrien: The Power of the Image, 2016 [21]
- Parasol unit, London, Robert Therrien: Works 1975-1995, 2016 [22]
- Tate Modern, London, ARTIST ROOMS: Robert Therrien, 2018 [23]
Collections
editHis artwork is included in museum collections worldwide, including:
- the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
- The Broad,[24]
- the Museum of Modern Art, New York,
- the Tate Modern, London,
- the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium,[25]
- the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland, and
- the Centre Pompidou in Paris.[3][26]
References
edit- ^ Sandomir, Richard (June 24, 2019). "Robert Therrien, Sculptor, Dies at 71; He Made the Mundane Monumental". The New York Times. Retrieved June 25, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Zelevansky, Lynn (2000). Robert Therrien. Los Angeles: LACMA. ISBN 9780875871868.
- ^ a b "Robert Therrien, sculptor who made the ordinary extraordinary, dies at 71". Los Angeles Times. 2019-06-19. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
- ^ a b Yau, John (2016). Robert Therrien. London: Parasol unit. ISBN 9780993519529.
- ^ a b c d Kenney, Nancy (June 18, 2019). "Robert Therrien, whose outsize art teetered between fantasy and reality, has died at 71". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Greenberger, Alex (June 17, 2019). "Robert Therrien, Maker of Whimsical Sculptures That Enlarge the Everyday, Dead at 71". ARTnews. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
- ^ a b "Robert Therrien (1947-2019)". Artforum. June 18, 2019. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
- ^ Gopnik, Blake (2013-07-12). "If Gulliver Were a Conceptualist ..." The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
- ^ "Sculptor Who Made Everyday Objects Giant Dies at 71". Artsy. 2019-06-18. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
- ^ "Artist Robert Therrien passes away at the age of seventy-one". artdaily.com. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
- ^ "artnet.com Magazine Reviews - Minimalist Fantasia". www.artnet.com. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
- ^ a b Rowell, Margit (2008). Robert Therrien. New York: Rizzoli. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-8478-3164-7.
- ^ "The Playground of Memory". Los Angeles Times. 2000-02-27. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
- ^ "Table and Six Chairs - Public Art Fund". www.publicartfund.org. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "Robert Therrien". Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. 2009-08-21. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ zephir.ch. "Robert Therrien". kunstmuseumbasel.ch. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "Robert Therrien, Tate Modern | Artist Rooms". www.artistrooms.org. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "archive". De Pont museum. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "Robert Therrien: No Title (Table and Four Chairs) | The MAC". themaclive.com. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "Robert Therrien at The Contemporary Austin". The Contemporary Austin. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "Robert Therrien". Denver Art Museum. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "Robert Therrien: Works 1975-1995". Parasol unit. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "ARTIST ROOMS: Robert Therrien". Art Fund. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
- ^ "Robert Therrien". The Broad. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
- ^ "Artist".
- ^ "Robert Therrien". LACMA. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
