RIP Robert Therrien – Thanks for Memory & Everyday
Robert Therrien, Maker of Whimsical Sculptures That Enlarge the Everyday, Dead at 71
Phone wires (See more here)
Sometimes people ask whether I am a romantic or a realist artist. I would hope that I fall between the two. . . The ideal artist looks at the future and the past at the same time. The romantic artist spends more time looking backwards. The realist attempts to work in the present but emphasizes the future. However, if you try to predict the future, you seldom succeed.
—Robert TherrienOver the past four decades, Robert Therrien (1947–2019) cultivated an expansive vernacular of forms drawn from memory and the everyday. Seemingly simple subjects—including snowmen, bows, and oilcans—acquire multiple levels of reference and association, while outsized sculptures of stacks of plates, tables and chairs, and beards shift between the ordinary and the surreal. The repetitive perfecting of chosen motifs is central to his work, imbuing objects and images with intentionality and a latent sense of the unattainable.
Sculptures for Giants by Robert Therrien