B. Wurtz, Untitled (pan paintings, from series), 1990-91, acrylic paint
and aluminum, various sizes
A thirty year retrospective of the work of New York artist B. Wurtz, 70 + 30 = 2000 includes pieces made from commonplace objects like shoestrings, buttons, food containers, and plastic bags. Pulling them out of their ordinary context and incorporating them in aestheticized designs, Wurtz delicately balances the object's autonomy and the design to which it has been subjected. Though the process of the work's making is strikingly clear, the objects are never transformed beyond their basic everyday status. Wurtz seems to say that though art and life meet, they do not blur.
The simple materials Wurtz uses refer to the simple necessities of life. Socks, cloth, and buttons are simple means of clothing our bodies. We sustain ourselves with the food from tin cans, vegetable sacks and other food containers. The simple dwellings Wurtz makes from scraps of wood and odd plastic detritus recall the structures we build to protect ourselves. As Michelle Grabner wrote in a review of the show, Wurtz is "a true humanist - his agenda is to seek secular and temporal values is art and life. "
Bill Wurtz was born and educated in California and currently lives and works in New York City. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and he exhibits regularly at Feature, Inc., NY.
Accompanied by a 48 page, color and b/w catalog.
