The Critical Edge I, 2015 fabric, wood, nails, hand-sewn brown thread, graphite; four black MDF panels and four fabric elements 36″ x 12′ 1″ x 3″ (91.4 cm x 368.3 cm x 7.6 cm) © Richard Tuttle, courtesy The Pace Gallery
I use the word minimal when I talk about Richard Tuttle’s work. But this is just a lazy reflex of mine to nominate an artwork according to the quantity of materials used, or evident labour involved in its making. Tuttle’s work deals in poetic economy, commanding the space around it with very little. His assemblages of lo-fi craft materials such as scraps of paper and fabric, string and nails, are sometimes loud agglomerations of unstraight lines and rough edges; not minimal at all but rather concentrated.
Fabric has never been an incidental medium in Tuttle’s work. However, in the current exhibition at Pace London, the artist presents fabric less as a component amongst others, as has been its function in much of Tuttle’s assemblage, but more directly, as the sole component. It celebrates fabric as a medium in itself through subtle detailing, in folds, stitching, and frills. What look like razor sharp seams when seen from a distance reveal the same handmade quality of the artist’s other work.
Tuttle’s fabrics, theatrically presented on black panels, are allowed their natural tendency to fall or fold in certain ways. They acknowledge, through lush detailing and colour combinations, fabric’s rich heritage as clothing.
(The next feature article to appear on the website, following an interview with the artist Sean Penlington, will be about Richard Tuttle’s current show at Modern Art, London.)
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