STACKING THE RAINBOW

September 5, 2002: Scott Richter at Elizabeth Harris Gallery

Twenty one years ago was about the time, more or less, when West Chelsea began as a newly minted arts district, following on the heels of the dissipation of the long stalwart Soho scene in New York. At the beginning of the Fall season in 2002, accompanied by a throng of fellow gallery goers, was when I first saw the sculptures of Scott Richter.

This exhibition was unique. Richter presented a half dozen of his tabletop palette paintings, freestanding works that were essentially meant to take the artist’s palette and expand it into a full-fledged artwork, piling layer upon layer of heavy pigment atop a table. They were portable versions of wall based paintings, to be viewed in the round, so that a more extensive relationship to the paint itself could be properly established. They were heavy with presence, and heavy with the weight of the color which, despite not being used to paint a picture, created a new context for pure color as actual material presence. Here was a unique formal experience, queerly beautiful despite all the questions it raised.

Richter took all the pure colors and made them heavier. He made them a form of landscape, or an organ of the body. He raised the palette and enlarged it to the scale of a table. He chose old, grungy tables, that all looked like they’d been plucked from one of a dozen authentic ateliers. Richter brought the studio to the gallery but made paint itself the character, as if the artist had been morphed into his palette. The works are naturally ambiguous, expressing a ‘neither here nor there’ aesthetic that charms while it challenges. They fulfill their moment, and then some.

DAVID GIBSON is a freelance writer in the arts. He is available to write essays for monographs, exhibition catalogs, text for web sites, grant and residency applications, and to provide critical thinking in matters of portfolio development, studio practice, and professional etiquette. He can be contacted at davidgibsonwriting@gmail.com