Richard Artschwager (b. 1923)

"I use visual perception as a way of bringing people into my space."

Richard Artschwager approaches sculpture from the notion that art is first and foremost an object of perception. For an artist whose main concern was eliciting a visceral response from his viewers it comes as no surprise that several of his sculptural works take on the grammar of furniture. Artschwager began to develop his formal style working as a cabinet and furniture maker during the years that preceded his artistic career. It was his experiences with this utilitarian objects that provided him with not only the vocabulary of form but also the technical skills of drafting and craftsmanship that such art-making requires. Furniture, as a utilitarian object, inherently requires participation on the part of an individual in order to fulfill its necessary function. A chair is only useful when sat in, a table is only useful once an item is placed upon it, a mirror is only useful when one looks into it. The same way furniture is cued by the shape and form of the human body Artschwager's sculptures court the human experience inviting us to both occupy its space and respond to it. But this is not to say that Artschwager produces physically accessible objects. The psychic component can only be a result of perceptual activity.

Tower III (Confessional) invites the viewer to mentally participate in a familiar ritual of revealing ones most intimate and often disturbing emotions. The confessional, as an object, creates an artificial bond between the sinner and the adjudicator. The penitent kneels on one side of a vertical partition will the priest sits erect on the other side, placing the participants in an awkward and uncomfortable physical proximity. The artist reinforces this stilted union in his choice of materials. Formica, a cheap form of plywood, suggests not only a degree of illegitimacy but reduces what was initially a spiritual ritual into a solely spatial event. The viewer who is kept at a strategic distance is invited to participate on a strictly visual level, yet the intimate feelings that accompany this familiar arrangement are forced into the public realm through the actual act of viewing and exhibition. Harping on these private emotions Tower III (Confessional) triggers an uncomfortable external response in each of its viewer, leaving its audience not only vulnerable but standing.

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