Allen Ruppersberg: Intellectual Property 1968–2018

Organised by the Walker Art Center, where it first premiered, the exhibition is now hosted by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. “Allen Ruppersberg: Intellectual Property 1968–2018” is a major retrospective dedicated to the Conceptual artist and marks his first comprehensive US survey in over 30 years. In particular, it features more than 120 works, from both private and public collections in Europe, some of which never exhibited in US museums.

The exhibition explores Ruppersberg’s practice, which intertwines fact with fiction and involves a wide array of media, although always unified by the use of materials from American vernacular culture, such as books, posters, newspapers, magazines and more. The retrospective includes the artist’s photo works combining text and image, early assemblage sculptures, and his participatory environments, as well as a broad range of drawings and collages, and more recent, immersive installations featuring such materials as commercial advertising posters, large-scale photographs, films, and books. Covering the key topics of Ruppersberg’s practice, the display also highlights his reverence for cultural forms destined to disappear and his will to active involve viewers in the works.