Richard Artschwager In the Driver's Seat

Press Release

Corbett vs. Dempsey is honored to present an exhibition of drawings by Richard Artschwager. A living legend at 87, Artschwager is one of the most important and difficult-to-categorize contemporary artists. In the mid 1960s, showing at Leo Castelli in New York, he introduced brilliant, beguiling paintings and sculptures made of Formica and Celotex; one of the best known of these, Table with Pink Tablecloth (1964), is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and is often on view in the Modern Wing. But Artschwager refused to be be trapped by one idea or aesthetic, and over half a century he’s explored many different realms between pop, post-minimalism, and conceptual art. All along he has drawn, and indeed graphite, ink, charcoal, and pastel works have constituted a central part of his oeuvre. In this exhibition, CvsD will show a select group of new pastels, many of which feature landscapes and roadways based on the Southwest. As with all of his work, they often have an unexpected element or twist – a naked leg jutting out of a landscape or the Jolly Green Giant waving from the roadside. Some of the drawings are executed on unusual materials, including flocked and handmade paper. The entire exhibition is a wondrous and strange as could be, a haunting, visionary statement from one of American art’s great iconoclasts.