Allen Ruppersberg: Intellectual Property 1968–2018

This major retrospective presents the work of American conceptual artist Allen Ruppersberg, who has not been the subject of a comprehensive US survey for more than 30 years. One of conceptual art’s most rigorous and inventive practitioners, Ruppersberg is among the first generation of artists to espouse a method of working that privileges ideas and process over traditional aesthetic objects. His projects, wide ranging in media and approach, have consistently had at their center a focus on the American vernacular, its books, music, popular images, and ephemera, mining the nuances of our culture through its visual details, unsung conventions, and modes of the everyday. From his earliest projects, the artist has also welcomed the involvement of the viewer as participant, inviting an experience of his work that is one of immersion—in language, visual density, accumulated elements, and ideas.

Allen Ruppersberg: Intellectual Property 1968–2018 offers an opportunity to experience Ruppersberg’s work with unprecedented breadth and depth. Many of the works included, from private and public collections in Europe and elsewhere, have never before been exhibited in US museums. Represented in the exhibition will be early installations such as Al’s Cafe and Al’s Grand Hotel, the artist’s groundbreaking participatory projects of the late 1960s; his seminal photo-based narratives combining text and image; and a progression of more recent installations containing his commercial letterpress posters, drawings, and films. The show will also include a broad selection of Ruppersberg’s drawings, and a complete presentation of his artist’s books.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

Whether you go or not, the exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, the most comprehensive volume to date on Ruppersberg’s work.