Elizabeth A.T. Smith, “Design Projects,” The Art of Richard Tuttle, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2005, pp. 290-291 for a discussion of Tuttle’s design work
Catalogue Essay
Richard Tuttle makes paper from raw pulp; he favors humble materials — plywood, wire, tissue, tin — what he refers to as “…small, insignificant nonentities compared to the power of nature.” For forty years he has worked across a range of disciplines including sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, and design. Tuttle built the present table for his own apartment in downtown New York. The marble sits on painted blocks set at angles to each other. Gravity holds the table together (other forces of attraction bind the dinner guests). Marble seems a departure: the power of nature bearing down? Curator Elizabeth Smith writes: “Whereas he sees the making of art as very much an individual act, he defines the participatory aspect of design as ‘a way to overcome the artist’s natural alienation…’” His table becomes that place to eat, talk and overcome.