Paul Thek retrospective tour

The Watermill Center is pleased to inform you about Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective, currently on view through January 9, 2011 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. At the end of his life, Paul Thek asked Robert Wilson to be the executor of his estate and to promise that his work be placed and seen in major American museums. During Thek's lifetime, his work was rarely exhibited in the US and was not represented in the collection of a single major American arts institution. This exhibition fulfills that promise. Thek and Wilson shared a long friendship and artistic collaboration as well as a common desire to realize a center for the arts and humanities that would serve as a haven for emerging artists. As the Watermill Center now houses the Paul Thek estate, you will be able to see some of your favorite Watermill Collection pieces exhibited in the Whitney galleries.

We are also very pleased to invite our New York patrons to a special private tour of the retrospective with Whitney curator Elisabeth Sussman on November 3 at 6pm after the museum has closed to the public. Space is extremely limited and will be available on a first come/first serve basis. Please RSVP to tj.witham@watermillcenter.org to secure your place. All reservations will be confirmed with a reply email.

About the Retrospective

Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective is the first retrospective in the United States devoted to the legendary American artist Paul Thek (1933-1988). A sculptor, painter, and one of the first artists to create environments or installations, Thek came to recognition showing his sculpture in New York galleries in the 1960s. The first works exhibited, which he began making in 1964 and called "meat pieces" as they were meant to resemble flesh, were encased in Plexiglas boxes that recall minimalist sculptures. At the end of the sixties, Thek left for Europe, where he created extraordinary environments, incorporating elements from art, literature, theater, and religion, often employing fragile and ephemeral substances, including wax and latex. After a decade, at the end of the seventies, Thek changed direction, moved back to New York, and turned to the making of small, sketch-like paintings on canvas, although he continued to create environments in key international exhibitions. With his frequent use of highly perishable materials, Thek recognized the ephemeral nature of his art works—and was aware, as writer Gary Indiana has noted, of "a sense of our own transience and that of everything around us." With loans of work never before seen in the US, this exhibition is intended to introduce Thek to a broader American audience.

Paul Thek: Diver, A Retrospective is co-organized by Elisabeth Sussman, Curator and Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Lynn Zelevansky, the Henry J. Heinz II Director of Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

Click HERE to read the New York Times review of the retrospective.
Click HERE to read the New York Times review of the retrospective.

photo credits:

left: Untitled (Dinosaurus), 1971. Wood, steel, glass, cloth, paint, and plasticine. 80 x 67.9 x 36.8 cm. Watermill Center Collection © The Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York. Photograph by Gary Mamay.

upper right: Church of the Holy Molar, 1971. Synthetic polymer and gouache on newspaper. 57.8 x 85.1 cm. Watermill Center Collection © The Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York. Photograph by Gary Mamay.

lower right: Untitled (Bunnies and Vortex), 1984. Synthetic polymer on canvas. 170 x 226 cm. Watermill Center Collection © The Estate of George Paul Thek; courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York. Photograph by Bill Orcutt.