Richard Wentworth

by Marina Warner

Richard Wentworth is one of the generation of younger, internationally acclaimed British sculptors who have fundamentally altered traditional definitions and perceptions of sculpture. His work allows us to recreate our perception of the world by forcing us to reappraise the objects with which we are surrounded. He has said "I live in a ready-made landscape, and I want to put it to work", and he takes manufactured objects and re-presents them, stretching affinities and creating fresh unions. The object and our perception of it are thus fundamentally reconceived. The everyday items and substances that form Wentworth's raw material - buckets, ladders, light bulbs, tins, corks, chalk, tar - preserve their humble integrity whilst being endowed with new and broader significance - tantalizing, enigmatic, amusing, eloquent. Imaginative play, 'pretend', is at the heart of his aesthetic, nagging at the limits of language. Wentworth often dubs his pieces with paradoxical titles that undercut the relation between sign and signified. Beachcombing amongst the flotsam of consumerism, he questions the hierarchies of "high" and "low" art, "precious" and "useful", in a way that recalls Duchamp and Beuys but also Jacques Tati and other lovers of the incongruities and textures of common things. In her text, Marina Warner elucidates his work and provides both insight and a critical context for his intriguing investigations.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Marina Sarah Warner is a British novelist, short story writer, historian and mythographer. She is known for her many non-fiction books relating to feminism and myth.

She is a professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre at the University of Essex, and gave the Reith Lectures on the BBC in 1994 on the theme of 'Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Time.'

Reviews

[Mills College Library]

730.92 W283 1993