B. Wurtz
b. 1948
B. Wurtz was born in Pasadena, California in 1948. He lives and works in New York. Over the past four decades, Wurtz has been making intimate sculptural works from familiar, utilitarian objects; papier-mâché assemblages balance atop readymade polystyrene plinths, sculptures made using straws, plastic cups and bottle tops delicately attached by pieces of string, aluminium pan paintings and socks sewn to raw canvas exemplify the breadth of his repertoire. He embraces, subverts and reinvents objects which are so familiar that they are almost invisible in our day to day lives.
In September 2018, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, opened B. Wurtz’s first major U.S. museum survey, This Has No Name. In 2015, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, presented Selected Works 1970-2015, a retrospective of Wurtz’s work which travelled to La Casa Encendida, Madrid in 2016. He has had solo exhibitions at Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany (2015); White Flag Projects, St. Louis, USA (2012); and Gallery 400, the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA (2000). His work has been included in group exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2004); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, France.