MAKING DO AND GETTING BY (LONDON 1990/FRANCE 1986)
1995
2 c-prints
18 7/8 x 42 1/8 inches framed

"Richard Wentworth intends for his photographs to operate somewhere between “formal rhymes and patterning” and “informal purposefulness.” He wants to discover the aesthetic implications of the everyday objects: the off-kilter patterning of floor tiles or the torn red fabric of a metal high chair. He is unconcerned with ponderous acts and “important” subject matter and seeks instead to make photographs that document “surprising encounters with equally surprising subjects.” It is crucial to the artist that these images not be read as documentary research or photographs to be filed away in an archive; he does not seek the “objective” eye of a documentarian or scientist, which he sees as part of a “vigorous colonialism.” Instead, he wants to highlight his own subjective position, “connected to [his] own movements on the face of the earth” in order to pose a set of philosophical problems. A point of view, he has asserted, “is inescapable . . . it leads to the ‘doors of perception,” which make possible a work of art. The fundamental question his work poses is: What is the aesthetic function of a work of art? Richard Wentworth was born in 1947. He attended the Royal College of Art in London from 1966-70 and taught at Goldsmith’s College, University of London from 1971-87. A major English sculptor for some 30 years, Wentworth was a part of New British Sculpture (with Tony Cragg and Anish Kapoor) and was an influential teacher to many of the Young British Artists of the following generation. In 2002 he became Master of Drawing at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University, and in 2009 was appointed Professor and Head of the Royal College of Art’s Sculpture Department, London. Previous presentations include solo and group exhibitions at Serpentine Gallery, London (1993, 1995); the 50th and 53rd Venice Biennales (2003, 2009); and Tate Modern, London (2005, 2007). He was awarded the Mark Rothko Memorial (1974) and the Berlin DAAD Fellowship (1993-94). Wentworth’s work is also in the permanent collections of many international museums. He currently lives and works in London. [source: Peter Freeman, Inc.] "

estimated retail value:  $7,500

opening bid:  $5,000

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