"Steve Wolfe on Paper" Exhibition
The Whitney Museum of American Art
This event has ended.
For over two decades, Steve Wolfe (b. 1955) has created objects and drawings of astounding craft and visual presence that investigate the intersections among material culture, intellectual history, and personal and collective memory. Working in the tradition of trompe l’oeil, his pieces often quite literally fool the eye on first inspection: tattered books, worn album covers, and vinyl records appear pristine but these are objects made from modeling paste, screenprints, drawings, and many other media, and they reproduce not just the thing but the individuality an object takes on as it is consumed by one or more individuals. Wolfe's objects are, in real life, ones that must be used and physically manipulated in some detailed way—books have every page turned, records every groove worn. The patina of time is thus inevitable and necessary, and leaves a record of the object’s meaning as it passes from the user's hand to mind. In essence, this is the subject of Wolfe’s work. Thus the tears, creases, and basic wear points to human contact rather that generic existence as a product become metaphors of enlightenment and culture.
Media
Schedule
from September 30, 2009 to November 29, 2009