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Working across various media, Richard Artschwager (1923 – 2013) specialized in the relationship between perception and deception. His print Liebespaar (Lovers), 2005, hints at two lovers embracing and is drawn from a series of works in which the artist focuses on a material he has used throughout his career to explore the tactility of the visual experience: rubberized horsehair.
The work allows for what the artist has called a “perfect imprecision.” A material commonly found in upholstery, rubberized horsehair is typically hidden from view underneath the soft edges of a sofa. Artschwager reverses the relationship between an object and its raw materials, asking the inner-body of an object to become its own surface. His hairy silhouettes of life-size human figures seem to dance, float, climb, and rejoice; yet they remain faceless and out of reach. With forms that manage to be both recognizable and nameless at the same time, Artschwager toys with our sense of perception.
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Tate Modern, London, England
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
