Robert Watts (artist) - Posthumous Reputation

Posthumous Reputation

Referred to as the invisible man of Fluxus and Pop by the critic Kim Levin, a term later used as the title of a solo posthumous show in Kassel, Watts remains a 'distant, aloof, and enigmatic' figure. In general his reputation has gradually recovered since the late 90s, although not without comments on some of the works' perceived sexism. As individual members of Fluxus have increasingly been singled out for re-appraisals, Watts work has been seen in a number of solo and small group shows across the USA and Europe.

'There is something impersonal or phlegmatic in Watts's composition, a deliberately flattened sense of timing. This aspect of his work has not aged as gracefully as have his concerns with commodity and its absurdities. A puckish wit remains where media and message are crisply meshed, as in Portrait Dress, 1965, a see-through vinyl frock with pockets for photographs, or the suite of neon signs in which the signatures of masters like Ingres, Duchamp, and Lichtenstein glow like ads. Other items in this show appeared dated, such as the Lucite sculptures with embedded photographs of food, or the painted plaster casts of bread lined up in a grayscale row, but this was largely because their semiotic jokesterism has been so wholly assimilated by successors that it cannot startle now as it did then.' Frances Richard, 2001

His work is held in numerous collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, J. Paul Getty Museum, Kunsthaus Zurich, and Tate Modern, London.