Richard Tuttle: Reality & Illusion | Art21 "Exclusive"

Episode #056: Artist Richard Tuttle installs the work "Ten Kinds of Memory and Memory Itself" (1973) at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Richard Tuttle commonly refers to his art as drawing rather than sculpture, emphasizing the diminutive scale and idea-based nature of his work. He subverts the conventions of modernist sculptural practice by creating small, eccentrically playful objects in decidedly humble materials. Influences on his work include calligraphy, architecture, and poetry.

Learn more about Richard Tuttle: http://www.art21.org/artists/richard-tuttle

VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller and Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera & Sound: Sam Henriques and Merce Williams. Editor: Jenny Chiurco. Artwork Courtesy: Richard Tuttle. Special Thanks: The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

If I were a better artist or something, I would have really tried these many, hundreds of times.

Different strings, and different situations, I didn't wanna know them too well.

A lot of my work is about not being able to do something well.

It tries to locate itself in a place where

An appreciation of craft is not necessarily a part of the appreciation of the piece.

I mean nobody could tell me how to do the craftsmanship that's in this piece.

It comes, really, from inside.

One of the important things about these pieces is where one string will cross another.

And in some cases, they burn into the string underneath so in terms of purposes,

They form a film, in other cases, they don't.

Like in the last one, the first one sinks in by weight and the second one burns, staying on top.

So the notion of being an illusion is also explained in this kind of seam of overlapping.

And whether it's a real overlap or an illusion, or rather the real looks of an illusion,

I mean, that's my favorite part of the whole piece. And maybe the whole piece is about.

Because most of my work is non-illusionistic.

And so the illusion, if there is an illusion, is actually real.

But in these pieces, it gets turned around and the fun, the real kind of yuck yuck fun,

Is when they actually, the real looks like an illusion- so the childlike quality.

Okay. So that's happy, happy living together, I think.