Raymond Pettibon’s (b. 1957, Tucson, Arizona) influential oeuvre engages a wide spectrum of American iconography variously pulled from literature, art history, philosophy, religion, politics, sports, and alternative youth culture, among other sources. Intermixing image and text, his drawings engage the visual language of pop and commercial culture while incorporating language from mass media as well as classic texts by writers such as William Blake, Marcel Proust, John Ruskin, and Walt Whitman. Through his exploration of the visual and critical potential of drawing, Pettibon’s practice harkens back to the traditions of satire and social critique in the work of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artists and caricaturists such as William Hogarth, Gustave Doré, and Honoré Daumier, while reinforcing the importance of the medium within contemporary art and culture today.
SmartSpaces presented Raymond Pettibon’s Repeater Pencil (2004) in the Framed: Drawings in Motion group exhibition in the windows of 200 Lafayette Street, New York City.
Pettibon graduated with a degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles. His work has been exhibited worldwide. Solo exhibitions of the artist’s work include the Kumu Kunstimuuseum, Tallinn, Estonia (2015); Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland (2012); Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2007); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2006); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain (2006); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1998); Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, California (2005); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2005), and The Drawing Center, New York (1998).
The artist has participated in a number of recent group exhibitions worldwide, including Never Again. Art against War and Fascism in the 20th and 21st centuries, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2019); Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy, The Met Breuer, New York (2018); Doublethink: Double vision, Pera Museum, Istanbul (2017); PUNK. Its Traces in Contemporary Art,Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona (2016); A History. Art, architecture, design from the 1980s until today, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2014); and This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which traveled to Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
Additionally, Pettibon has been a part of the Istanbul Biennial (2011); Liverpool Biennial (2010); SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico (2010 and 2004); Venice Biennale (2007 and 1999); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2004, 1997, 1993, and 1991); and documenta XI, Kassel, Germany (2002).
Museum collections that hold works by the artist include the Baltimore Museum of Art; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Gallery, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Pettibon lives and works in New York.
- Project: Framed: Drawings in Motion
- Artist Website: www.davidzwirner.com/artists/raymond-pettibon/biography