Author(s): Ted Larsen (Artist); David Pagel (Text by)

Art | Sculpture

Transformative minimalism: surveying Larsen's ingenious synthesis of worn patina and geometric rigor

This is the first monograph on Sante Fe-based sculptor Ted Larsen (born 1964), bringing together over 15 years of creative output. Since 2001, Larsen has sought alternative and salvaged materials in his abstract constructions with the "hope of bringing purist shapes and surfaces back down to earth." This quest takes Larsen to sites such as the metal scrapyard, where he mines the raw material for his work by sawing off sections of older-model vehicles. The works' surfaces, which hold a strongly patinated palette, are unmodified; the colors of the metal that skin the objects--the rusty off-white of an old pickup truck or the vibrant yellow of a decommissioned school bus--are exactly as he found them. Calling to mind both architecture and the reductive forms associated with Minimalism, Larsen's works upend and defy classification.