Richard Artschwager!

The Hammer Museum is proud to present Richard Artschwager!, a full-scale, major retrospective exhibition of the work of Richard Artschwager on view through September 1, 2013.  Approximately 150 works survey Artschwager’s remarkable exploration of the mediums of sculpture, painting, and drawing, bringing to light the extraordinary breadth of subject matter and form in his practice. The selection highlights the extensive study of material, shape, and style in Artschwager’s work, while revealing how the artist’s unrelenting investigation of art objects and images has been informed by the equalizing lens of photographic reproduction in the 20th century. 

"I wanted you to feel a jolt. A kind of, wow, what is this?" -Scott Flax

For this exhibition, Hammer senior curator Anne Ellegood worked with professional colorist Scott Flax. Upon entering the exhibition visitors are greeted by a bright blue wall, followed by walls of yellow and green. Walkways are painted silver to mirror the aluminum framing of many of Artschwager's works. According to Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, Artschwager employed aluminum framing to make the viewer part of the painting.  Artschwager felt that if the viewer saw his or her reflection in the frame, that a direct connection to the work would be established. While Artschwager is not alive to see the Hammer’s presentation of his retrospective, the artist’s widow, Anne Artschwager, regards Flax's colors as a complement to her late husband's work.