Inside, the Still Pure Form: G

"Tuttle's move to New Mexico, his primary residence for ten years beginning in 1988, had an immediate and ongoing impact on his work. Having initially installed himself in Galisteo, Tuttle eventually purchased property in Abiquiu atop a mesa affording a spectacular 360-degree view of virtually unspoiled desert landscape. The tranquil expansiveness, starkly radiant light, gentle palette, and natural geometries of his New Mexico surroundings clearly inform Inside the still pure Form, a richly complex installation involving wall painting, low-relief sculptures, and drawings that occupied two floors of New York's Blum Helman Gallery in 1990. For this work, Tuttle encircled the walls of both gallery spaces with five continuous bands of color-each composed of a thin pencil line on top of which lay a tinted wash-that were arranged in such a way as to suggest an abstracted landscape: two bands of different-colored blue (manganese and cobalt) installed skyward, tow kinds of yellow (a yellow ocher and an Indian yellow) located at the level of an imaginary horizon line, and a viridian green placed close to the floor. The bands were absolutely congruent with their architectural support and remained continuous as the wall surface sounded corners and accommodated a reception desk, windows, and doors. Riding on top of this environmental wall work were fifty-four low-relief sculptures and framed drawings installed above, below and directly on the painted bars, looking much "like musical notes on the stave" Inside the Still Pure Form exhibits the classic characteristics of installation art, at precisely the moment when the medium reached full maturity"(M. Grynsztejn, ed., The Art of Richard Tuttle, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2005, p. 56).