Using plastic as his medium of choice, Craig Kauffman was the first to employ a vacuum-forming process that subtly molded this otherwise rigid industrial material. As with several of his Southern California–based colleagues represented in this gallery, he used light to engage the expectations of perception that he found to be critical in looking at sculpture. Untitled’s floating presence and subtle gradations of color project shadows and hues onto the wall, and as a result, much like the effect of Robert Irwin’s discs, this work is difficult to distinguish from its surrounding architecture. Not incidentally, the original title for Kauffman’s series of hanging works was Le mur s’en va, or “The wall goes away,” an explicit reference to the perceptual play between sculpture and the space it occupies.
Details
- Artist Name: Craig Kauffman (American, 1932-2010)
- Title: Untitled
- Date: 1969
- Medium: Acrylic on formed plexiglas
- Dimensions: 71-7/8 x 50-3/8 x 8-7/8 in. (182.6 x 128.0 x 22.5 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of the Artist
- Accession Number: P.1970.03
- Copyright: © Estate of Craig Kauffman
Object Information
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1969-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.
Craig Kauffman
- Pasadena, Pasadena Art Museum, 1970-01-27 to 1970-03-01
- Irvine, University of California Irvine, 1970-03-10 to 1970-04-05
Beyond Brancusi: The Space of Sculpture
- Norton Simon Museum, 2013-04-26 to 2014-01-06
Translucence: Southern California Art from the 1960s & 1970s
- Norton Simon Museum, 2006-05-12 to 2006-08-28
Made in America: Contemporary Painting and Sculpture from the Norton Simon Museum
- Norton Simon Museum, 1999-06-24 to 2000-03-26
- Pasadena Art Museum, Craig Kauffman, 1970, no. 19
- Armory Center for the Arts/Art Center College of Design, Radical Past: Contemporary Art & Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974, 1999, p. 54
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