Richard Tuttle: Replace The Abstract Picture Plane

From 1996 to 1999 Richard Tuttle worked for the Kunsthaus Zug, in Switzerland, in an endeavor to provide the institution's collective activities with a new orientation. To this end, Tuttle created four rather different large works that referred to the space of the museum as a whole as well as its immediate surroundings. Astounding in view of Tuttle's body of mostly small and delicate work, these tailor-made objects redefine the space which they inhabit. The works also act in dialogue with each other: Replace the Abstract Picture Plane IV, for instance, consists of no less than forty parts whose asymmetrical arrangement on the first two floors of the southern wing respond to the spiral shape of the green snake located in the northern wing. Conceived by Tuttle, this new monograph constitutes a work of art in itself, and represents a pioneering step in collaborations between artists and museums. Also presented here is a photographic essay by Guido Baselgia, who viewed and documented Tuttle's work at Zug for the duration of its three-year stay.