Last days to play with Richard Tuttle’s System VI
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- Richard Tuttle: ‘I Don’t Know. The Weave of Textile Language’, installation view at the Whitechapel, London.
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- Richard Tuttle, Systems, VI, 2011, powdered tire rubber mixed with acrylic, vinyl-coated steel cable, nails, wire, white 3′ electrical cord 100 × 114 × 114 in, 254 × 289.6 × 289.6 cm. Photograph by Kerry Ryan McFate.
If there was a soundtrack for Richard Tuttle’s assemblages it might include his mother exclaiming, “What have you been up to, Ricky? Wait until your father gets home!”.
If you are a parent, or fortunate enough to remember those times when you built new homes, makeshift dens, or imaginary encampments from the furniture at home, you may have experienced a sense of déjà vu from observing the centerpiece installation on the ground floor space of the Richard Tuttle exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery closing in a few days.
Systems VI, White Traffic’ (2011) greets the visitor whilst commanding the central area, from floor to ceiling, surrounded by wall bound pieces, and Tuttle’s poetic titles. The first impression is of an encounter with an arbitrary jumble of various items – including wood, polystyrene foam, wire, electrical cord and a halogen lamp. Someone’s been having fun, creating a topsy-turvy world in which up is down and vice versa.
But we are in a highly prestigious gallery and so we take these accumulations seriously. A sculpture, or an installation, will almost inevitably be supplemented by an identifying label on the wall. In this instance the title is underwritten with a poem written by Tuttle. We turn our backs to the artwork to read this and realise that looking for an explanation diverts us completely from engagement with the work. Whether this is intentional or not, we cannot be sure, but this acts as a reminder to us that art should be experienced for what it is, not reliant on a wall plaque.
So, we return to this overblown construction. Does it reference a table turned upside down? Or is this a shrine or temple dedicated to childhood? Is that a piano at the base? Does the single, bare, light bulb hint at something sinister? We must bring our imaginations to this piece – and beware of adult literalness. We can re-construct a magical realism with the prompting of Richard Tuttle’s carefully improvised constructions: he is a Man-child, and enables us to experience the world anew and reformatted.
December 10, 2014
