Richard Hawkins (artist)

Richard Hawkins (born 1961 in Mexia, Texas) is an American artist.[1] He lives and works in Los Angeles.[1] His works are held by museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art,[2][1] the Museum of Modern Art,[3] and the Art Institute of Chicago.[4]

He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas, Austin in 1984 and a Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in 1988.[5][6] After graduating from Cal Arts, Hawkins worked for a time as a short story writer.[7] Hawkins' art largely consists of sculpture and collage.[8] His works combine "ubiquitous pop-culture images and objects with arcane references and quotes"; frequent themes include "current celebrities, literary lions of yesteryear, haunted houses, Asian sex tourism, Greek and Roman statuary and the American Indian experience".[7] He is gay, and his sexuality also informs his artwork.[7][8] According to art historian Richard Meyer, Hawkins' "mash-up [of] avant-garde, kitsch and kink", including the use of traditionally feminine consumer items, "challenge[s] us to rethink our hierarchies of value and visual pleasure."[7]

Hawkins was instrumental in reviving the work of the late artist Tony Greene, including co-curating (with Catherine Opie) an exhibition of Greene's work that was included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial exhibition in New York.[9]

  1. ^ a b c "Richard Hawkins". Whitney Museum of Art. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  2. ^ "All Artists in the Collection: H". Whitney Museum of American Art. Archived from the original on 5 December 2013. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  3. ^ "Richard Hawkins (American, born 1961)". Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  4. ^ "Hawkins, Richard". Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  5. ^ Neil Schlager, ed. (1998). Gay & Lesbian Almanac. Detroit: St. James Press. p. 516. ISBN 9781558623583.
  6. ^ Mark Coetzee, ed. (2007). Red eye: L.A. artists from the Rubell Family Collection, December 6, 2006-May 31, 2007. Miami, Fla.: Rubell Museum. ISBN 9780978988876.
  7. ^ a b c d Young, Paul (February 2011). "Richard Hawkins: The Beautiful and the Damned". LA Times Magazine.
  8. ^ a b "In Conversation with Richard Hawkins". Gayletter. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  9. ^ Whitney Museum of American Art, "Tony Greene curated by Richard Hawkins and Catherine Opie" [1]