“[My] punctuation pieces were wanting to inflect objects and spaces the way real punctuation inflects the abstract objects and spaces of written language.”
—Richard Artschwager
Artschwager's multiples offer visual and analytical contradictions, subversively engaging simultaneously with the vernaculars of Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptualism: the Pop derivation from utilitarian objects, the Minimal application of industrial materials, and the Conceptual impulse to engage with the ideological structures of language. Twisting established dichotomies of artistic and industrial production, Artschwager blurs the line between what is faux versus real, handmade versus manufactured, functional versus useless, and ordinary object versus high art.
