Allen Ruppersberg

Infobox Artist
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name = Allen Ruppersberg

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caption = Allen Ruppersberg presents a book-give-away performance of "The New Five Foot Shelf" paperback book.
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birthdate = 1944
location = Cleveland, Ohio
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nationality = American
field = Conceptual art, Painting, Sculpture, Installation art
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Born in 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio, Allen Ruppersberg is one of the first generation of American Conceptual artists that changed the way art was thought about and made. His work includes paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures, installations, and books.

Biography

Ruppersberg graduated with a BFA from the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (now California Institute of the Arts) in 1967. During his early years in Los Angeles, he began significant relationships with John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, William Wegman, and Allan McCollum. He participated in the groundbreaking 1969 exhibition "When Attitudes Become Form," [Harald Szeemann, "When Attitudes Become Form", exhibition catalog, Bern: Kunsthalle Bern, 1969.] and is recognized as a seminal practitioner of installation art, having produced such influential works as "Al's Cafe" (1969), "Al’s Grand Hotel" (1971) and "The Novel that Writes Itself" (1978). Since the late 1960s, his work has been the subject of over sixty solo exhibitions and nearly 200 group shows, and can be found in permanent collections of museums internationally, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Foundation de Appel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany, among many others. Career highlights include participation in the Whitney Biennials (1970, 1975, 1991), Documenta V (1972), Lyon Biennale (1997), and Sculpture Project Münster (1997). [Allen Ruppersberg, "The Best of All Possible Worlds," published for the installation in the exhibition: "Skulptur Projects in Münster", 1997.] In 1985, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles organized a major exhibition of Ruppersberg's work, which subsequently traveled to the New Museum of Contemporary Art, in New York. [Howard Singerman, "Allen Ruppersberg: The Secret of Life and Death. Volume I: 1969-1984", Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art catalog. Edited by Julia Brown. Santa Barbara (Black Sparrow Press), 1985.] Exhibitions include Frac Limousin, Limoges, France (1999); [Frederic Paul, Allan McCollum, and Allen Ruppersberg, "Allen Ruppersberg: Books, Inc." Publisher: F.R.A.C. Limousin, 2001.] Institute of Visual Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1998); and Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany (1997). Ruppersberg lives and works in New York, NY, and Los Angeles, California.

Artist's Philosophy

Allen Ruppersberg philosophy was to use language as a means of expression in its own right. He drew on all the different sectors of the mass media and the consumer society from a critical viewpoint.

Notes

References

"Allen Ruppersberg: One of Many," by Allen Ruppersberg Publisher: Walther Konig, 2006

"Allen Ruppersberg: [http://home.att.net/~amcimages/al.html|What One Loves About Life Are the Things That Fade] ," by Allan McCollum

External links

Allen Ruppersberg's work at [http://catsearch.atomz.com/search/catsearch/?sp-q=allen%20ruppersberg&sp-a=sp10021fcc&sp-f=ISO-8859-1 The Museum of Modern Art, New York]
Allen Ruppersberg's project at [http://www.diacenter.org/ruppersberg/ Dia Art Foundation]

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