Allen Ruppersberg

10.02.00

Allen Ruppersberg is an internationally-known conceptual artist whose humorous
installations, sculptures and actions blend popular culture with art history and literary
references.

Ruppersberg was born in 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio and received his B.F.A. from the
Chouinard Institute in Los Angeles. Since the late 1960s, his work has been the subject of
over sixty solo exhibitions and nearly 200 group shows. Career highlights include
participation in the Whitney Biennials (1970, 1975, 1991), Documenta V (1972), Lyon
Biennale (1997), and Sculpture Project Munster (1998). In 1985, the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles organized a major exhibition of Ruppersberg's work.
Recent exhibitions include Frac Limousin, Limoges, France (1999); Institute of Visual
Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1998); and Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany (1997).
Ruppersberg lives and works in New York, NY.

At ArtPace, Ruppersberg presents an installation of two bodies of work. The Novel
That Writes Itself is an ongoing project consisting of screen printed posters. Brightly
colored with a fluorescent palette, the posters are graphic with bold typography. They
recall the type of street posters one might find stapled to telephone poles advertising
garage bands, warehouse sales, or circus acts. Yet here, the messages are written by the
artist and include such enigmatic slogans as "Who's Afraid of the New Now?," "What
Should I Do?," and "When Things Cease." Ruppersberg covers the gallery walls in a grid
of these posters forming a choppy and provocative narrative.

Hanging directly on top of the posters, Ruppersberg also presents a new group of
drawings from his series Honey, I rearranged the collection. Each work begins with a
silk-screened image of a well-appointed living room. The artist has altered each print by
drawing, painting and collaging over this interior view and has given each piece a unique
title. The titles, casually scripted along one edge of the drawing, read like cartoon
captions. Each begins with the phrase "Honey, I rearranged the collection ·" and ends
with a quirky explanation: "·to show everyone I was right about everything.
Everytime;" "·according to two categories: Nice and Not Nice;" "·to try and explain
ourselves to our fellow collectors".

With a sharp sense of humor, Ruppersberg questions the public's relationship to fine
art. Issues of authenticity and authorship are thrown to the wind with his seemingly
endless reproductions of posters. In his drawings, collecting art is reduced to a bourgeois
act of decorating. Ultimately, Ruppersberg makes storytelling the key element in his art.
His modular installation and non-hierarchical arrangement of words and images allows
viewers to shape their own narratives and build their own comedic poetry.

445 North Main Avenue San Antonio TX 78205 t 210 212 4900 f 210 212 4990 www.artpace.org