Robert Kushner
Robert Kushner
Here we are in 1980 with people struggling to maintain the idea of the avant garde but nowhere else to go. It just seems much more comfortable to say: well, I don't care. I can view what I'm doing as a continuation and a slight update of a vast conservative tradition. The traditional, as I would contrast it to the avant garde, is behind the theme of decoration.
Robert Kushner was born in Pasadena, California in 1949. He studied art at the University of California at San Diego, where he graduated with honors. Kushners fascination with Western and non-Western culture informs much of his work, lending it themes that are often deemed universal and constant. Kushner study of the garden, which appears in the art and literature of almost every culture, is an example of this.
His work is included in the public collections of every major museum in the United States as well as some of the most prominent museums in the world including the Uffizi in Florence, The Tate Gallery, London, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Museum Ludwig, St. Petersburg, Groninger Museum, the Netherlands, and Museum Moderner Kunst-Palais Liechtenstein, Vienna.