Robert Therrien

American, 1947-2019

No title (yellow hat)

© Estate of Robert Therrien / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

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© Estate of Robert Therrien / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of Robert Therrien / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of Robert Therrien / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of Robert Therrien / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

No title (yellow hat), 1986

Artwork Details

Materials

wood, bronze, and enamel

Measurements

weighted pedestal: 38 1/8 x 5 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches (96.84 x 14.6 x 14.6 cm); overall: 50 1/2 x 12 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches (128.27 x 31.75 x 13.97 cm)

Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Credit

The Panza Collection and George B. and Jenny R. Mathews Fund, by exchange, George B. and Jenny R. Mathews Fund and Charles Clifton Fund, by exchange, 2008

Accession ID

2008:53.64

This hat belongs to a group of works that are mostly recognizable everyday objects. All these works are changed by eliminating their useful parts. The yellow hat appears to vaguely resemble some sort of brimmed hat. Maybe a straw boater. The essential head hole is missing, or the essential void is filled in. There are other works, too, whose functions are rendered useless: a piano without keys, a keyhole which is not a hole at all but a 3-D object, and a chest of drawers or bureau where the open drawer is solid again and the essential container does not exist. There are several versions of this idea in the Albright-Knox’s collection. These are the sorts of things I frequently discussed with Count Panza. (I hope at some point to do a prototypology chart of the different “hats.”)

—Robert Therrien, Los Angeles, California, April 2016