Allen Ruppersberg, Kunstkammer (detail). Picture courtesy DCA
Jem Charleston quickly learns how to 'read' a fascinating exhibtion as she talks to American artist Allen Ruppersberg at Dundee Contemporary Arts.
Returning to more familiar territory after a series of music-related, interactive events, Dundee Contemporary Art’s (DCA) major new Allen Ruppersberg exhibition, One of Many – Origins and Variants, provides an abundance of visual and mental stimulation.
Allen Ruppersberg will be 62 this year and has had a prolific career as an artist and collector. He collects books, posters, newspapers, comics and films and this material has been the basis of much of his art over the years.
The exhibition, running until May 28 2006, brings together a number of his major works made between 1960 and 2005 and, in some ways, documents his work as a collector.
Drawing inspiration from everyday life, Rupperberg’s work has been described as life that is turned into art - and vice versa. His main aim is to make his art common and particular to everybody that comes to see the exhibition - regardless of what they know about art.
“That’s the idea,” he explains. “I think that’s what art does - all art, not just mine. The idea of art is that it’s a picture of real life, in one way or another.” Because most of the works on display are inspired by everyday life, I ask him if it’s fair to say that most people will understand this exhibition.
Allen Ruppersberg, Kunstkammer (detail). Picture courtesy DCA
“If they know how to look at it,” he says. “You have to learn how to read it.” It is evident that Ruppersberg understands that art can be intimidating to the untrained eye. “But it shouldn’t be,” he says, “because it’s just a different language”.
Perhaps this is the best way to approach the exhibition. There are many familiar images - but placed in a different context. Normally books belong in shops or on shelves and movie posters should be on display outside cinemas.
Ruppersberg, on the other hand, presents them as history, as art - as important - because life is so full of information and wonderment.
Looking round the gallery is like learning a new language - learning not to feel disorientated by your surroundings and understanding them in their new context.
Much of the work here revolves around literature and words. On entering the exhibition visitors are faced with an entire wall covered with ‘Day-glo’ posters, which makes up Ruppersberg’s 2003 work The Singing Posters: Poetry, Sound, Collage, Sculpture, Book - Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.
Allen Ruppersberg, Singing Posters Installation. Picture courtesy DCA
Inspired by a 1959 recording of Beat poet Ginsberg’s epic poem Howl, Ruppersberg transcribed the words phonetically on to some 200 bright posters and interspersed them with adverts. The effect is such that, to read the words, you must sound them out - otherwise they are difficult to decipher.
This is Ruppersberg’s homage to Ginsberg, bringing his words to life once more - but once again, the work reflects his own life.
“When you live in Los Angeles, you see these posters on the street all the time - they’re very popular. People will recognise them from everyday life. Because you’re in the car a lot of the time, they go on telephone posts and they have to be striking. It’s very common.”
Another work honouring artists influential to Ruppersberg is on the floor of the first room - Letter to a Friend (1997). Originally commissioned for a show at Frankfurt’s Portikus Gallery, it fits surprisingly well into the DCA space.
“It was a public space, rather like the DCA,” Ruppersberg explains. “It was made in 1997, that’s why all the dates end in 1997 - it’s the year all of the artists died.”
Allen Ruppersberg, Singing Posters Installation. Picture courtesy DCA
The black and white tiled floor pays homage to writers and artists that Ruppersberg either knew or was influenced by. “I had met Martin Kippenberger, Allen Ginsberg and Douglas Huebler,” he tells me. “I never met Robert Mitchum, or De Kooning - but they were all big influences.”
In the second gallery, there is a secluded corridor where visitors can find 20 canvases covered in scrawled handwriting. Ruppersberg copied Oscar Wilde’s famous novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, word for word on to these canvases back in 1974 using a pen.
Wilde’s novel is about a painting – so this is effectively a painting about a book about a painting. But now, like Ginsberg’s Howl, the work also has a personal touch.
“I think you should read everything,” explains Ruppersberg. “You should read posters, you should read books and you should read movie posters - everything.”
Ruppersberg also hopes that, instead of being intimidated by authors or films visitors have never heard of, they might go out and do some research of their own.
“Everybody can go out and buy Oscar Wilde’s book, The Picture of Dorian Gray - it’s a really good book,” he laughs. “And if they don’t know it, then they can see this here, wonder what it is, and go and buy it - and then they’ll understand it.”
Allen Ruppersberg, Kunstkammer (detail). Picture courtesy DCA
He gives us a glimpse of some of his own collection in works like The New Five Foot Shelf (2001), consisting of large photographs of all the stuff he keeps in his studio. This particular work also exists as a website and archive www.diaart.org/ruppersberg
“That’s my studio,” he explains. “But the house is kind of the same - but not so much. A little bit less.”
“Storing stuff like that in boxes is no use - you have to have a place for them. Sometimes I don’t look at those things for 20 years but then, one day, I might want to look at them again - you never know.”
It seems fair to describe Ruppersberg’s practice as a vehicle for bringing together life and art by documenting and collecting things.
A prime example of this is the quirky piece Where’s Al? (1972). It’s a collection of Polaroid photographs and index cards. On these cards are various conversations people had when they were wondering why Ruppersberg hadn’t turned up to whatever event they were at.
Allen Ruppersberg, Kunstkammer (detail). Picture courtesy DCA
Even though he is absent from the work, we can still form an idea of what kind of person he is from the things people said about him.
“It’s just normal talking,” he says. “It’s what people always used to say - I just wrote it down.”
Ruppersberg seems to truly believe that we could all be artists if we’d just look at life that little bit closer. How anyone couldn’t be inspired might puzzle Ruppersberg, because his inspiration is life itself.
